The AU of Doom!
by The Spastic Forkie
Summary: I'm back with two new chapters! Ha, I am not quite dead...yet.
1. Meet Christian!

Hi again.

Ewan and Jude blink into existence

Ewan and Jude:  We're baaaaack!

The muses.

A bear blinks into existence as well and starts to chase them

Ewan and Jude:  AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!

I actually wrote this a long time ago.  Back in like February or something.  So it'll be outdated.  Believe it or not, this was not my original story.  Nope.  This was originally an honest to God AU that I attempted to write.  About a few pages into it, however, I completely lost it and re-wrote it as a cruel parody.  So basically, I'm poking fun at myself…if that makes any sense.

Awkward silence, except for Ewan and Jude's screams in the background

But Moulin Rouge AU's are pretty cool.  Though we all know the very best AU out there is A Story About Love by She's A Star and I command that each one of you go to my favorites list and read it!  It will make your life spiffy.  But I hope you guys like this one too.  And I think if you're the type with a twisted sense of humor, you will like it.

Bear:  RAAAAAWR!!!

And now, I disclaim!  Tis Baz's.

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**_The AU of Doom!_**

By: GollumRox

            It was all her fault.

            Yup, there was no denying it.  Christian knew he was sitting in this janitor's closet getting eaten alive by children half-evolved into badgers from being in there for too many years all because of her.  It was HER doing!

            "Get off me!" Christian growled as he shoved a badger off his back who was having a go at his shoulder.  "You too!" he yelled at a badger with a napkin tied around his neck anxiously holding a fork and knife.

            "Ohh…" the badger groaned and went back to his rat corpse.

            Christian thought of joining them because he was pretty hungry himself.  No, he had to get out of this stupid closet.

            Wait, wait, wait.  Back up.  Why don't we start from the BEGINNING of the story and explain exactly what it is?

            The readers threw their arms in the air and squealed in delight like children on a sugar high…mostly because they WERE children on a sugar high.

§

            Warpy McWarperson.  And now we are at the beginning!

§

            GollumRox shivered immensely and wished she'd had a sweatshirt on…then she went and got one out of her closet.  But she didn't put it on until her muse informed her to do so.  Her mind just wasn't the same after miserably failing her driver's test.

            "Minus four is not failing, Forkie!" Ewan McGregor kept reminding her.  "Minus 25 is failing."

            "I know," GollumRox sighed to her muse.  "But I still could've done better."

            She sighed yet again and felt like writing something completely random to ease her troubled and tormented mind.

            "I feel like writing something completely random to ease my troubled and tormented mind," she said finally.

            "Kay," Ewan shrugged.

            "Send me subliminal messages."

            "Kee dokee."

            And so they sat in silence.  But not for long.

            "AHH!  AH, GOD!  GET IT OUT!  GET IT OUT!!!"  GollumRox commenced banging her head on the desk.

            "Well, you didn't say exactly WHAT images I should send you subliminally.  Tee hee."

            Oh, that stupid little Scottish prick.  He would pay.

            GollumRox leapt up, ripped the guitar out from under her bed, paused to apologize to her Mexican stalker for whacking him in the face during the process, set the guitar down on the bed to unlatch the five clips on the case, opened the case, took out the guitar, tuned it, and proceeded to slam it into the side of Ewan's head.

            "Give me PURE subliminal messages!" she screeched.

            "Okay, okay.  Jeez…" he complied, rubbing his head.  That was going to hurt tomorrow.

            And so they sat in silence and this time it lasted longer.

            "Yey!" GollumRox cheered throwing her arms into the air.

            "Did you think of something?"

            "No!  Drew Barrymore's hosting Saturday Night Live tonight!"

            Ewan stuck a gun into his mouth.

            "Ah, ah, ah.  You have to keep musing me," GollumRox scolded, taking the gun from him.

            "Bugger."

            "I got it though.  Woo hoo!"  And so GollumRox sat at her computer, opened her word processor and typed the words: 'The AU of Doom!'.

            And so it began.

§

            Christian took a sip from his mocha latte and raised his $40 sunglasses slightly from his face with his free hand to get a better glance at the hot babe he was checking out.  The hot babe was, in fact, Cameron Diaz fresh out of the shower.  She had a towel loosely draped around her glossy body and her hair was stringy and dripping with water.  Even though she had no make up on, she still looked just as perfect as she always did.

            Impressively leaning back onto his Dodge Viper, Christian decided to come onto her with his boyish charm.

            "So, Cameron," he droned in his smooth, boyishly charming voice.  "How was that shower?"

            Cameron stopped where she was to take a good look at Christian casually leaning against his fancy car, wearing his fancy clothes, sipping his fancy mocha latte and smiled.

            "GO TO HELL!!!" she suddenly burst out causing Christian to tumble backwards into his Viper.

            It was a convertible.

            Cameron flipped her hair ever so snootily and strutted off the movie studio lot, later slamming head-on into a delivery truck from sticking her head up too high to see in front of her.

            Christian laboriously climbed out of his Viper and stared after her.  About 6 seconds later, he realized his mocha latte spilled all over his $86.49 shirt and he carried out the first action that crossed his mind.

            "AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!" he wailed as tears of frustration streamed down his cheeks.

            Mary Hart stepped into view from Christian's right.

            "No one understood why Cameron Diaz acted the way she did in front of co-star Christian Slater.  She did, however, think up a good hoax explaining her broken nose from slamming head-on into the delivery truck.  Surfing.  Good one, Cameron."

            She giggled at her own joke as Christian kept wailing behind her.

            "Anyways.  We all know that this was a tragedy the entertainment world will always remember as 'the tragedy we got a good story on.  Thanks a lot, Christian Slater and Cameron Diaz for making our lives worthwhile'.  I'm Mary Hart for Entertainment Tonight signing off.  Back to you, Michael."

            The scene immediately changed to the ET headquarters and all its shiny golden goldness.  And pretty lights.

            Gold.

            "Thanks, Mary," chirped Michael Jackson, who was guest hosting that night.  "Gotta love that Christian Slater.  I loved Lord of the Flies.  He was so great as Frodo Baggins."

            There was an extremely long pause before Michael brushed back a lock of his hair, which immediately fell back into place, and continued ever so fruitily.

            "And now for our top story.  Did I sleep with a little boy or not?  We go to me for complete details.  Michael?"  Mr. Jackson rolled his chair to the end of the counter.  "Thank you, Michael.  By the way, you're looking very nice today.  Did you get another face lift?"  Michael pushed his chair to the other end of the counter.  "Why, yes I did, Michael.  How nice of you to notice."  He rolled to the other end again.  "Yes, I thought your face looked a little tighter than last—"

            Suddenly the image of Michael Jackson in the shiny, spiffy, golden ET headquarters turned into a black screen.

            Christian tossed the remote onto the end table and raised himself from the couch.  Nothing good was ever on TV in the morning.

            He was so extremely nervous about starting high school that he was desperately trying to find something to do to take his mind off it.  All night he stayed up reading his Harry Potter books, writing in his di—I mean journal, and playing Egyptian Ratscrew with himself.

            Which is extremely difficult to do.

            He'd heard his share of stories about the notorious students in the Milwaukee high schools and really wasn't thrilled about being around them.

            Especially since he'd get beat up by the nerds at his old high school.

            Heh heh.  Loser.

            Finally Christian just dashed to the plant in the living room for the sixth time that morning and vomited into the dirt.

            This made the plant very sad.

§

            "Carolyn, I have a question," Christian announced over breakfast a few hours later.  Since there was no mother in the household, the breakfasts always consisted of Top Ramen.

            "I have an answer," Christian's gothic sister replied rather smart alecky as she slurped up a large amount of shrimp-flavored noodles.

            "What's our last name?"

            Carolyn thought for a long time while she drummed her black fingernails on the counter.

            "Isn't it James?"

            "That's what I thought too but I heard it was Adams."

            "Adams…"  Carolyn fell into deep thought.  "I'm not quite sure.  Just say it's Iggins.  That's what I tell people."

            "That won't work, Carolyn, because my middle name is Iggins.  I can't be Christian Iggins Iggins."

            "Well, you're screwed then."

            After a slightly long pause, their father, Billy Bob, was heard tumbling down the stairs.

            "God dammit!  Who put those stairs here?!"

            "Dad's awake.  Why don't you ask him?" Carolyn suggested before tossing her spoon and slurping down the entire bowl of Ramen.

            "Ask me what?" Billy Bob inquired suddenly appearing next to them.

            Carolyn choked on her Ramen, resulting in a few noodles hanging out of her nose.

            "That's sick."  Christian tore from his gaze to look at his father.  "I was just wondering what our last name was."

            "You mean you don't know by now?" Billy Bob asked, leaning on a bobble-head, immediately falling over from the lack of support.

            "No.  I've heard it was like 20 different things.  I'm not sure which one it is."

            Billy Bob leapt up, tried replacing the bobble-head to no avail, and decided to toss it out the window.

            "Well, Chrissy honey, our last name is Timperline of course."

§

            Mrs. Cowwe grunted and let out a rather loud and wet fart as she heaved up the garbage bag into the can.

            "God dammit," she muttered through the 5 cigarettes between her lips.  "Why do our kids have to kill so many cats?"

            At her last word, she felt something small but hard pelt her on the top of the head, causing her to drop the garbage bag, stumble backwards and impale herself on the water meter.

            "What the hell was that?" she coughed as all her cigarettes fell to the ground.  "Aw, mah ciggies."

            She reached down to pick them up, the 10 second rule still applying, only to find a Toni Kukoc bobble-head lying on the ground.

            "Ahh!  The sky's falling!  We're all gonna die!  MUTHERRR!!!"  And so Mrs. Cowwe threw up her flabby arms and ran around in circles in a complete panic before her genetically enhanced German shepherd lunged at her, ripped out her throat, and trotted off to bury it.

§

            "But Dad, I thought our last name was Iggins!" Carolyn protested.

            "Shut up, Carolyn.  Our last name had been Timperline ever since 1999.  Besides, what's it matter to you since you're going to marry and change your name anywho!"

            "Well, jeez.  I thought it was Iggins."

            "Well, thanks for telling me, Dad," Christian sighed, and returned to his Ramen.

            Like a good father, Billy Bob sensed the depression in his son and, like a good father, he shoved Carolyn out of her chair and sat in it.

            "What's wrong, Chrissy Poo?  You seem sad."

            "Kay, for one thing, don't ever call me Chrissy Poo again.  Secondly, I'm just nervous about starting school here.  I mean, I got a lot of crap back in Lan—"

            "Hey!" Billy Bob yelled, smacking Christian upside the head.  "You watch your mouth around me, little boy!  Shit!"

            "Sorry.  Anyways, as I was saying, I wasn't treated well back in Lansing and I just know that by going to a school full of drug addicts and degenerates I possibly won't survive."

            "Christian, Christian, Christian," Billy Bob sighed, placing his arm around Christian's shoulders.  "There are times when you get suckered in by drugs and alcohol and sex with women, mkay?  But it's when you do these things too much that you become an addict and you must get back in touch."

            Both Christian and Carolyn stopped what they were doing to stare at their father who was gazing into space with a stupid grin on his face.

            "…WHAT?!" they spit out in unison.

            "I…don't…know.  Don't listen to me, son.  I'm just a paranoid, steroid-popping widower.  Do you actually EXPECT me to give you good advice in the state I'm in?"

            "…I guess not," Christian sighed.

            Jeez, he sure does sigh a lot, huh?

            "That's my boy!"  Billy Bob slapped Christian a little too hard on the back causing him to go into a massive coughing spell.  "Off to school, you two!"

            Billy Bob leapt off the chair, colliding with Carolyn, causing her to fall backwards onto the Toni Kukoc shrine, tipping over all the candles, and setting the rug on fire.

            "Jeezum Crowe, Carolyn!  Watch where you're going!  Put that rug out, why don't ya."  Billy Bob bolted out of the room leaving Christian and Carolyn to slap the rug with their hands until the fire was out.

            "Darn.  Now the Bucks rug is scorched.  We have to get a new one today so Dad won't notice," Christian sighed.

            Carolyn lifted the scorched Bucks rug and turned it over so that the Packers side was facing up.  The two siblings stared at the rug for a long, long time.

            "You'll have to hurry," Carolyn finally said.

--------------------------

Good, yah?  No?  It gets better.  BTW, the 'Cowwes' are based on my evil demonic neighbors who thankfully moved away a few weeks ago.  Hopefully they'll move to a bomb testing area in New Mexico and get blown up.  Ah, if only.  Anyways, go on and give me some feedback, my darlings!  Vaminos!

Ewan:  AAAAHHHHHHH!!!

Jude:  AAAAHHHHHHH!!!!

Bear:  RAAAAAWWWWRRRRR!!!


	2. Meet the Geeks!

Mmmmyah.  I feel rested since I slept from 2:00 to 1:30.  Almost 12 hours of sleep.  Like you guys care.

Ewan:  They don't.

Reviewers!  I didn't expect to get any but…yey!

xanya-forever:  I can't believe you actually liked it.  Woo hoo!  Ah, I don't hate AU's.  I just find it fun to mock them.

Naba:  Well, if you're going to flame me, don't make it so that it's incoherent.

Jude:  Ooo!  Burn!  You are not all that and a bag of potato chips!  snap, snap  Mm hmm!

Um, this chapter is…different.  Hope you likey!  No own.

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            Christian stepped onto the bus.  Everybody in the seats immediately stopped making out with the person next to them, including the bus driver who was making out with his pet dog, and shot evil glares at Christian and Carolyn.  Most of these glarers were goths and punks with their eyes outlined with a black permanent marker and piercings on half their faces.

            "Woo hoo!  I fit right in!" squealed Carolyn as she ran to the back of the bus and disappeared in the murky fog.

            Christian shifted his eyes to the aisles where all the punks and goths were still glaring at him and his unwelcome preppiness.

            He sheepishly cleared his throat and made his way awkwardly to the first seat and sat down next to an overly thin and extremely pale kid with humongous eyes.  He immediately regretted it.

            As soon as the bus started to roll down the street, Christian decided to introduce himself to the overly pale, overly skinny, overly creepy kid with the overly oversized eyes.

            "Hi, I'm Christian."

            The creepy little kid next to him slowly turned his head and locked his bloodshot eyes with Christian's blue ones.

            Wait, aren't they green?

            …Maybe they're gray.

            Anyways, they made eye contact.

            "Ees eet tyme, Beelleey?" the creepy kid asked in a rather raspy voice.

            After smelling the marijuana in his breath, Christian decided to stare in a forward direction the rest of the way to school.

§

            School!

            Christian was the first off the bus.

            This meant he was stampeded by the thirty goths and punks racing to get off the bus.

            Carolyn was the last off the bus.

            She stood on her brother's back and stared down at him.

            "You're pathetic, Christian.  How do you expect to survive here at…"  Carolyn struck a pose and cocked an eyebrow, "…_Moulin Rouge High_?!"

            Always on cue, Woodland Creature popped out of a random garbage can.

            "Dun dun dun!" he announced, ducking back into the garbage can as soon and Christian and Carolyn turned to look.

            "What is it?  Where did it go?  WHYYYYYY??!!" screamed a random goth who was obviously on a bad trip as he ran over to the garbage can, overturned it and dug through the pile of trash.

            "This school scares me," Christian decided finally.  "I want to go home."

            "Oh, Christian, you just have to blend in," Carolyn said, heaving him up.  "Just turn goth.  It'll solve all your problems."

            "But being goth is just so vile."

            Carolyn stared at her hopeless brother for a long period of time.

            "Well, I better be off to find my homeroom…"  Christian wondered off, still receiving ugly glares from pretty much everybody.

            Inside was no better.  As soon as Christian opened the door and stepped into the hallway, he had almost the exact reaction as on the bus.  All the guys dropped their bitches and growled at his presence.  Right when Christian saw foam forming at the corner of their mouths, he turned and bolted down the hallway.  Immediately as he turned and ran, the entire population of the school was on his tail, most of them growling and barking furiously and running on all fours.

            Christian turned a corner and found a door.  He quickly went to it only to find out it was the girls' bathroom.

            "Like oh my God!  It's a man!  AHHHHH!!!" screeched the goth chicks as the dropped their joints and eye-liner and bolted out of the bathroom.

            Christian panted and leaned against the sink.  He couldn't help but let out a giggle in relief.

            As soon as he did, however, one of the stalls of the bathroom flew open and five people came tumbling out onto the floor.

            "Ow."

            "Eh."

            "Ouch."

            "Muhgoo."

            Christian's jaw dropped at the mere sight of them.  The first to stand up was a rather short fellow, barely four feet tall.  He looked from the other four people lying on the floor to the toilet, then to the ceiling then to the tiny security camera in his hand.

            "Ah, poopsicle!  You wewen't supposed to faww asweep!  Now we won't be abwe to weach the ceiwing!"

            The little dude's speech impediment gave Christian a massive headache.  But instead of inching away like he would normally do in this situation, he decided to stay on account of all the goths and punks out on a search party for his ass.

            While he was contemplating this, the short guy turned and saw Christian and gave a surprised squeal.

            "Don't scawe me wike that!" he screeched at Christian.

            "Um…sorry?"

            "It's okay.  My name is Adam Bunsen Chapman Dugan Egbewt Fawwell Gugenheimew Humdingew McCheese the thiiiiiwd!"

            Christian stared at him for a long time, trying to process his extremely long name.

            "But you can caww me Jeemmy."

            "Why Jimmy?"

            "I…don't know.  GowwumWox wanted to make a wefewence to hew pawody.  You can caww me Touwouse too if you want."

            "No…I just have an urge to call you Jimmy."

            "Faiw enough."

            There was a short pause before Toulouse realized he was standing amid four bodies after they'd fallen rather distractedly out of a bathroom stall.  Not to mention they were all males in a girls' bathroom.

            Well, ALMOST all of them were males.

            "This isn't dignified!" one of the four bodies exclaimed.  Christian looked over and saw a gender challenged person stand up and brush itself off and then glare at Toulouse with its hands on its hips.  "You SAID this would work.  NOW look at us!  We're lying on the floor just because SOMEONE couldn't stay awake!"  The it-thing yelled into one of the body's ear, who remained in his position on the floor, snoring quite loudly.

            "Um, this is Wumil," Toulouse explained to Christian, gesturing to the it.  Rumil just shot Christian a skeptical smile and returned its glare to Toulouse.

            "Now what are we going to do now that Pupitre is out?  We don't have enough people to reach the ceiling!"  Rumil scoffed and folded its arms.  "Nice going."

            "We wewe twying to instaww a secuwity camewa in the bathwoom staww so we can wecowd aww the bad wittwe giwls smoking cwack so we can tuwn it in to the pwincipal and get weward money."

            "What?" was all that Christian could think of saying.

            "CRACK IS WHACK!!" spazzed one of the bodies wearing thick glasses and a bow tie.  He clutched an inhaler in one hand and a can of Lysol in another.

            "Unfowtunatewy we don't have enough peopwe to weach the ceiwing because Pupitwe is passed out."

            "Is he narcoleptic?" Christian asked, looking at the unconscious guy, doing the rabbit chase in his sleep.

            "No, he just fawws asweep evewy ten minutes."

            "Well, that's too bad…"

            "We neeeeed this reward money, Toulouse.  I can't get into Marquette without it," whined the remaining body.  He wore a Cat-in-the-Hat hat with blue and white stripes.

            "They must be offering a lot of money if it's enough to get you into Marquette," Christian offered.  He suddenly burst out into laughter, mostly because of the sight of all these crazy people he found.

            They only stared back at him.

            "Ah, ahem.  I can help."

            "Yey!" they all cheered.

            And so, Pupitre was dragged aside and the five of them crowded into the stall.  The guy with the Cat in the Hat hat was the base while the spazzing nerd climbed on top of him, constantly complaining about the unsanitary toilet they were standing on, then went Rumil on top of him, then an extremely uncomfortable Christian on Rumil's shoulders and lastly was Toulouse on top of Christian's shoulders.  The five of them were very unstable and every inch of them was wobbling.

            "Hurry up, Toulouse…my legs are gonna give out…" wheezed the Cat in the Hat guy.

            "Are you saying I'm fat?!" demanded Rumil.

            "DON'T TALK!" the nerd yelled.  "Your spit is getting on my arms!  Ew!"  He shook the can of Lysol and sprayed his arm.

            Three seconds later, he realized what he did.

            "AHHH, IT BURNS!!!  AHHHH!!!"

            The human ladder shook uncontrollably as the nerd screamed and flailed his arms around.

            "Knock it off, Steve!  I awmost have it!" Toulouse yelled down to him.  Naturally, Steve didn't hear him and continued to scream and freak out.

            "Steve!  Stop it!" Rumil hissed, slapping him across the face.

            That did it.

            Steve let out a long gasp and clamped a hand over his cheek.

            "NEVER TOUCH ME!!!"

            With that, he grabbed Rumil's arm and yanked it down, causing Rumil to fall forward.  Christian, of course, was immediately thrown out of balance, because of the empty air underneath him and fell backwards.

            Fortunately, he got a good hold of a rather large and stale spitwad on the wall.  For a while, he just dangled there, with one hand on the spitwad.  He looked up and saw their destination wasn't very far.  With Toulouse still on his shoulders, Christian managed to rock climb the wall, using the hardened spitwads as supports.

            By this time, Steve had stopped bitch-fighting Rumil and the three of them were staring at Christian in awe.

            "Wow, he's like Spiderman!" commented the Cat in the Hat guy.

            Christian was close enough to the ceiling for Toulouse to fasten the security camera to the ceiling.

            "I weeeeen!" Toulouse announced happily throwing his arms into the air.

            "Woooot!" two of his friends responded.  Rumil, however, had its arms folded wearing a scornful glare on its face.

            "Were you trying to IMPRESS us with that?" it demanded of Christian, who was still propelled on the wall.

            "Um…sure."

            "Well I never!  I'm leaving."

            With that, Rumil flipped its hair and strutted out of the bathroom and was never seen again.

            "Good riddance, ya heshe," muttered the Cat in the Hat guy.

            Christian slowly made his way down the wall the same way he got up and dropped down to the ground.

            "Ew!  How can you TOUCH those things?!" Steve asked, avoiding Christian as if he were diseased.

            "Who cawes, Steve?  He saved the day!  He gets bonus points!" Toulouse exclaimed.

            "Yeeeey!" the Cat in the Hat guy replied.

            We're calling him Greg, okay?  Okay.

            "Bonus points?" Christian asked.

            "It's just an expwession.  You don't WEAWWY get bonus points.  But you can join ouw cwub if you want."

            "What club?"

            "The Children of the Revolution Club," Greg explained.

            "What revolution?" Christian asked after a long pause.

            "Do you want us to fowwow the movie or not?" Toulouse prodded.

            "Uh, sorry.  I'll join your club."

            "Spiffy!" they all exclaimed.

            By this time, Pupitre had woken up and joined them.

            "Did you know my name means 'desk' in Spanish?" he asked Christian.

            "I do now…"

            "This cawws fow a cewebwation!" declared Toulouse as he whipped out a bong from his pocket.

            "Hey…aren't you trying to bust people for crack?" Christian asked upon seeing the bong.

            "Cwack and pot awe two diffewent things, my fwiend. …What is youw name anyways?"

            "Christian…Timperline," he said slowly, feeling the newness of his name.

            "Well, Chwistian Timpewwine, you may have the fiwst puff."  He lit the bong and handed it to Christian.

            Nervously, he accepted the bong and looked around at all their eager faces.

            "Are you sure…?"

            "Go on, Chwistian!" Toulouse urged.

            "Yeah, yeah!" Greg, Steve and Pupitre joined in.

            Christian slowly placed the tube to his lips and inhaled.

            At first, he felt nothing, except the smoke swirling around in his head and creeping down his throat.  He immediately went into a coughing fit.

            "HAHAHAHAHA!  He wikes it!" Toulouse screeched in sheer amusement of his friend.

            "Woah…" Christian said after his coughing subsided.  "That's some good stuff."

            They all burst into uproarious laughter.

            Twenty minutes later, they were sprawled on the floor, their abdomens aching from too much laughter.

            Christian seemed to be enjoying it the most because he was seeing everything as fuzzy and furry.  Even the toilets and sinks.

            "This is the best day of my life!" Christian announced, slurring slightly.

            "Me toooo!" Toulouse screeched from his fetal position on the floor.

            All the parents in America read this disapprovingly and thereby made it a law not to have their children reading any more of this stupid mess GollumRox threw together.

            Frankly, it gave them gas.

-----------------------------------

I don't really like that chapter.  Tis a jumbled mess.  BUT it does get better…hopefully.

Ewan:  It doesn't.  Cookie break?

Okay.  Don't forget to review!  wiiiiide grin!


	3. Meet Satine!

Nobody loves me.

Ewan wanders into the room

Ewan:  Nobody loves you.

Midnight Proc:  AU = Alternate Universe.  Think of the dogs.

Paige:  Yah, Carolyn rules.  She's like the cynical smart character that's in every story.  AU = Alternate Universe.

Denzel Crocker:  You're stupid.  And I WILL vote Kerry!

Eax:  I didn't intend Carolyn to be like Gaz.  That's kinda cool.  Yey!  …and I didn't intend to make it HIGH school like that.  Well, we all know what's on YOUR mind!  AHAAHAHAHAHAHA…hahaha…ha…ahem.  I have enough stalkers, but you're welcome to join the club.

Frotu!!!!:  Take a look in your mailbox.  I left a little surprise.  Ha ha…ha ha.  I kid, I kid.  I don't even know where you live.  …Thû loves you.

Mr. Sileg:  Do you realize how many days that song has been stuck in my head?!  DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHATSOEVER HOW MUCH TIME I SPENT TRYING TO GET THAT SONG OUT OF MY HEAD?!  ZEEEEP EEEET!!!  And I WILL vote Kerry!

Fun stuff.

Ewan:  Can I disclaim?  I've always wanted to disclaim!

…Fine.

Ewan:  I own a blender!

§

            As soon as the bell rang only to Christian, it didn't sound like a bell, but a car-alarm, a cow mooing, and the screech of a bat, it was time for Christian to find his homeroom.  Unfortunately, he was stoned out of his mind and couldn't even see straight and when he COULD see straight, he only saw everybody and everything furry and fuzzy.  All the goth punks suddenly were transformed into cuddly teddy bears with black eye-liner and piercings on their faces.

            It ruled.

            The best part was, they all saw how bloodshot his eyes were and figured he was just another pothead and so he was immediately accepted and agreed upon not to be the next bitch to beat up.

            After slamming into the doorframe, Christian finally made it into his homeroom and missed the chair as he sat down.

            This action led to Christian's tailbone being sore for a month and a half.  But to him it was all good.

            "Groovy," muttered Mr. Jolly, his hippie teacher, who was sitting cross-legged on top of his desk.  He crumpled up the role sheet and threw it into the small campfire on his desk.  "Now, dudes, it's like time for current events, mkay?  So, Tiffany, do you want to start?"

            An extremely thin girl with a pink Mohawk stood up and made her way over to the other side of the classroom.  Christian watched as the fuzzy and furry girl climbed up on the windowsill and jumped through the open window.  A nasty squish sound soon followed.

            "Well, that was funky," commented Mr. Jolly.  "All right, Tiffany, go ahead and start."

            This time a pregnant girl with a black Mohawk stood up and held a piece of paper unsteadily in front of her.

            "Cheese, $1.34.  Kibbles and Bits, $6.19.  Milwaukee's Best, $18.77.  Cap—Wait, that's my receipt…"  Tiffany dug through her duffle bag and pulled out a random piece of paper.  "I wish I could sleep forever.  Nobody will miss me—Ugh.  That's my suicide note from three years ago."

            "All right, let's just skip you, Tiffany.  Thanks anyways.  Much love, man."  Mr. Jolly tossed a handful of glitter from his handy-dandy sack of glitter.  "Mkay, let's move onto the new guy.  Christian, do you have any current events, man?"

            Christian was still fascinated with the window that the pink-haired girl leaped out of and naturally didn't hear his own name.

            "Hey, man.  I know staring streaks are groovy things but you need to pay some attention, man," Mr. Jolly said, waving a hand.  He finally threw some more glitter to catch his attention.

            "Who…?" Christian garbled.

            "Current events, man.  Share the love."

            "Oh, um…grapes?"

            The class, instead of laughing like they would back in Lansing, didn't move from their previous positions as they were used to that kind of response.

            "All right, all right.  Groovy.  Very good, Christian, dude.  We all know about the major grape shortage here in Milwaukee.  Having grapes is like a totally controversial thing, dudes.  It's like…being in Ethiopia with a Big Mac…it like doesn't happen, man.  Awesome job, Christian.  Thanks for pointing that out to us, man.  Much love, much love."

            Suddenly the announcement speaker crackled and a happy, jolly, fatherly voice boomed over the classroom.

            "Good morning, MRHS!  And happy Monday!  This is your principal here for your morning announcements!"

            Christian watched as seven more students abandoned their seats and one by one, took a leap out of the window.

            "Don't forget the pep assembly after first period today!  Be sure to wear your school colors!  For those of you who forgot what our school colors are, they're gray and black.  And for those of you who forgot to there even WAS a pep assembly today, that's okay because it doesn't matter!  We're going to have fun anyways!"

            A few more students filed out of the window.

            "Come on down to the gym and show your school spirit!  Well, there are lots of clubs and organizations meeting today but none of the members ever show up so don't even worry about it!  Today for lunch, we'll be having bacon pizza with extra olive pits!  Don't forget to bring a towel to gym class because you can never predict when you might need it!  Well, that's it for your morning announcements!  This is principal Zidler!  Have a spiffy day, everybody!"

            And like that, he was gone.

            "Groovy, groovy.  Are you all psyched for the pep assembly today?" Mr. Jolly asked the class.  The class, or what was left of the class, didn't answer him.  They never did.  "All right, class, let's continue the lesson on conflicts in Iraq.  Iraq is like the Vietnam of our time.  Does anybody here remember who Sadaam Hussein is?  Anyone?"

            In response, Christian let out a sick gurgling noise and dropped his head onto the desk.

            "Ladies and gentlemen, Academy Award Winner Johnny Depp," announced the announcer, as it was his job to announce.  Derr.

            Stumbling onto the stage was a rather drunk Johnny in his Michael Jackson hat and dark sunglasses, acting very much like his Raul Duke.  It took him an entire six minutes to find the podium and figure out where he was.

            "The nominees for best original screenplay arrrr!"  He cleared his throat and hacked up a blob of something awful before continuing.  "Sophia Copolla for Lost in Translation 2.  Tim Herlihy for The Wedding Singer 2.  Heather Lemmon for MAH.  Ryan Philippe for Cruel Intentions 3.  And Christian Timperline for The Mushy Love Story.  Woot.  And the Oscar goes toooo…"

            Johnny stood up there, holding an imaginary envelope before realizing that it was, in fact, imaginary and couldn't be read.  He finally got a hold of the actual envelope, opened it and stared at it for quite a long time.

            "Enilrepmit Naitsirhc.  Huh.  I don't remember him getting nominated," he muttered before passing out on the ground.

            "Maybe NEXT time, the presenter shouldn't be dyslexic!" screeched Halle Berry as she bustled her stuff onto the stage, giving all the men in the audience jolts of hotness.  Waa.

            Halle grabbed the envelope from the unconscious Johnny and held it up.

            "The Oscar goes to Christian Timperline for his mushy love story."

            "Yey…" replied the audience rather unenthusiastically as Christian smiled sheepishly and made his way to the podium.  GollumRox just loved making fun of herself.  …And she was really tired.

            Halle grabbed Johnny by the ankle and dragged his body off the stage, making way for Christian.  By the time the two Oscar winners were completely gone, Christian made his way up to the podium, clutching his Oscar and stared at the audience, who sat in a creepy silence.

            Somewhere a cricket chirped.

            "I don't get a standing ovation?"

            A huge groan emerged from the crowd and they all reluctantly got out of their seats and clapped for Christian.

            "Yey!  I get a standing ovation!"

            "Read it!" yelled an extremely drunk Ben Kingsley through cupped hands.

            "Shut up, you old prune!" hissed a sober Julia Roberts but unfortunately, Christian had already heard his drunkard request.

            "Nah, I can't re—okay, I will."

            "Noooooooo!" the entire sober population of the audience screeched.

            Mistaking their negative plea for an urge to read his Oscar-winning script, Christian whipped out a copy from a tiny pocket and slipped his gooooooooold statue into it.  He set the script on the po—

            "Duuuuuuuuuuuuude…duuuuuuuuuuuuude…"

            Christian shook off the mysterious, echoing voice a—

            "Duuuuuuuuuuuuude, focus, dude.  Duuuuuuuuuuuuude…"

            Ahem!  AS I WAS SAYING!  He set the script on—

            "DUDE!"

            Mr. Jolly took off his 2 pound, yin-yang necklace or as some of the students would call it, the hippie bling-bling, and chucked it hard at Christian's head, promptly jolting him awake.

            "Ummbugger!" was Christian's response.

            "Dude, the class left for the pep assembly like 15 minutes ago.  After they left, I started like meditating, you know?  And I'm like finished and I see you sitting there still and I'm like 'Dude, what's Christian doing here still?' so I'm like 'Duuuuuuuuuuuuude.' And you were all like "Uhhh…"  So I had to wake you up, man.  Hope minding isn't your thing."

            "…Ow," came the delayed reaction as he rubbed the side of his head.

            "You better like go on down to the gym, man.  They probably started without you, dude."

            "Kay."  Christian stumbled out of his desk and hurried out of the classroom after slamming into the wall he apparently didn't notice.

            "Dude, I want my groovy necklace back, man!" Mr. Jolly called after him.  Christian didn't return.  "Aw, dude.  That's not cool, man.  Now I have to like actually GO to that dumb assembly."

            Luckily for Christian, Toulouse was waiting at the end of the hall for him like a good friend.

            Awwwww!

            "Hey, Jimmy," said Christian, approaching him.

            "What took you so wong?  I thought you died ow something."

            "Ehhhh…"

            "Oh weww.  Wet's go."

            They stepped outside and immediately shielded their eyes, hissed, and leapt back into the dark building.

            "Weeeeet's go this way," Toulouse suggested.

            On the way down the hall, Christian happened to be looking out the window and saw a huge pile of his classmates.  Fortunately none of them died like he assumed because the author was in a very unmorbid mood and didn't feel like being homicidal.

            But she'll make up for it later.

            Upon entering the gym, Christian failed to notice the bar separating the two doors and promptly slammed into it.

            After shaking off the blow, he failed to notice the xylophone player and collided with him.

            After helping up the startled, but unharmed percussionist and dusting him off, he failed to notice the entire woodwind section of the band and trampled over them all.

            Not only was the band and the entire school used to this sort of action, but it didn't even make a difference in the music they were playing; they were all playing their instruments backwards anyways.

            Even the drum player, who was trying his hardest to blow a tune into his drumstick.

            Principal Zidler watched from the center of the gym, trying to put on his biggest, most encouraging grin.

            "Oooookay.  Give it up for the MRHS band!" he bellowed into his microphone to the crowd of students and clapped.

            The bleachers were so silent, that the only audible sound was the principal's clapping and the drummer's sputtering and snorting as he was trying to use his drumstick as a clarinet.

            Christian spotted Steve, Greg and Pupitre sitting in the nerd section of the bleachers and he and Toulouse made their way over to them.

            No really, there was a nerd section in the bleachers.  Above the bleachers, the cheerleaders made rather sloppy banners stating "PUNKZ"  "GOTHS"  "NERDDS" "POTHEDS" and "TEECHRES".

            Of course, the teachers never showed up for the pep assemblies and usually went home to sleep for two hours before returning to their miserable, underpaid lives.

            "And now, students," principal Zidler boomed into the microphone, "it's the moment you've all been waiting for!  Give it up for your Moulin Rouge High School cheerleaders!"

            He threw his arm in the direction of the opposite side of the gym.

            Nothing happened.

            "…Ahem.  Give it up for the CHEERLEADERS!"

            A piece of plaster crumbled from the wall in response.

            Confused, Christian looked around the gym for the cheerleaders who missed their cue…twice.  He figured they were just like the rest of the school.  Only worse.

            "Oh, _cheeeerleaders_!" Zidler called, rather annoyed and impatient.  "It's time for you to come out now!"

            Silence followed along with a few scattered coughs from the crowd.

            Before Zidler could scream in frustration and start yelling profanity – the action he'd been wanting to execute since he took charge of this stupid school – a few dazed, lost, and confused squeals emerged from the opposite side of the gym and out came the cheerleaders.

            Garnished in the ever-so-patriotic colors of black and gray, the eight of them flaunted onto the gym floor, often yipping and just letting noises escape their mouths.  Among other places.

            A weak applause settled in the air as some of the more alert students gave a bleak effort to clap for the ditzy wonders.

            As Christian observed the eight girls, he noticed every single one of them looked like they were dunked in oil and were getting high off the fumes.

            "Woo!  Kay…ready?  Kay.  Go!  MRHS!  Go!  Go!  MRHS!  Go!  Go!  MRHS!  Go!  Go!  MRHS!  Go!"  All the cheerleaders were doing for a routine was clap, raise a clenched fist into the air, and clap again.  It seemed like they were marionettes voiced by a broken record replaying over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over…

            Pupitre couldn't stand it, vomited, and passed out, tumbling down the stairs of the bleachers.

            And over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over…

            "Go!  MRHS!  Go!  Go!  MRHS!  Go!"  They all lined up, placed their arms on each other's shoulders and commenced a sloppy cancan.  "Go!  MRHS!  Go!  Go!  MRHS!  Go!  Go!  MRHS!  Go!"

            For a finale, one of the cheerleaders abandoned the kick line, and turned on a stereo that was lying around near the wall.

            Blaring out the speakers was Marilyn Monroe's infamous song: "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" only it was a spiffy little updated version with—

            "Hold it!  Hold it, hold it, hold it!"

            Snap back to reality.  Opp!  There goes gravity!

            "Forkie, you can't use that song," said the muse and slapped GollumRox's hand in punishment.

            "Why not?  It has to parallel the movie, right?" she rebutted, punching him in the face in response to his chastisement.  Now her hand hurt from both the slap and the blow to Ewan's jaw.

            "It does have to parallel the movie, but just don't use THAT song," Ewan explained, rubbing his jaw.  He shoved GollumRox out of her chair.

            "Well, what song can I use if it has to mean the same thing?" she demanded, leaping up and kicking her muse in the shin.

            "I have no idea!  You're the writer!"  Ewan head-butted her and she tumbled backwards over her CD player.

            "Well, YOU'RE the muse!  You're supposed to come up with all the spiffy ideas!"  Forkie grabbed an aluminum bat and jabbed him in the gut.

            "Fine, fine!  Leeeeeesten!"  Ewan crawled over to GollumRox's TV, pushed in the tape jutting out of the VCR and let it play.

            Upon the screen, GollumRox saw her first husband performing his Oscar-worthy role, singing in his Grammy-worthy voice and a humongous burst of inspiration uh, burst through her!

            Yey!

            "Thanks, Ewan!"  GollumRox struck her muse in the ribcage with her bat, causing him to tumble over and leapt back into her chair to continue typing, leaving the TV on just for kicks.

            Warp.

            Upon hearing the dead Marilyn Monroe song, the cheerleader paused, snorted, hacked up something, blinked laboriously a few times, and turned it to the next track.

            NOW blaring out of the speakers was "Love Stinks" by…I dunno.  But it's a song!  And it was playing!

            Yey!

            Changing the tracks to the CD player was way too much work for the cheerleader and she lost consciousness completely.

            As the infamous 80's song blasted through the gym, the song reached the part where the guitar, keyboard and COWBELL join in, cuing another cheerleader to burst through some banner on the other side of the gym.

            As soon as she did, the entire crowd of both students and teachers turned their potheads over to her, most of them drooling over the redness of her red hair.

            It was red.

            The redhead cheerleader wasn't like the others.  No, she was different.

            Well, one thing, she had red hair.

            Secondly, she acted like she went with less than two weeks of sleep, AND she was pretty.

            Hey, don't look at me like that!  I don't swing that way!  I was just saying she wasn't some ugly bitchy looking broad, that's all!

            Jeez.

            Anyways, this new cheerleader squealed enthusiastically a few times before rounding off, back hand-springing three times and finally back-flipping landing in the splits, throwing up both her arms.

            "Wowwwwww…" was the crowd's response.

            Christian drooled.

            No, he wasn't shallow or anything.  He just thought she was pretty spiffy.

            And then she began to _sing_.

            "You love her, but she loves him, and he loves somebody else, you just cant win!"  She grabbed a local punk from the crowed and pulled him up by his NIN shirt.  "And so it goes until the day you DIE, this thing they call love is gonna make you CRY!"

            Before she could shove the punk back down into his seat, he'd already passed out.  From what, we'll never know.

            "I've had the blues, the reds and the pinks, one thing's for sure!"

            She held an imposing stance and waited for her fellow cheerleaders to scream "LOVE STINKS!"

            Buuuut, it never happened.  And it only turned out to be a long pause before the hot cheerleader continued "Yeah, yeah!"

            She whirled her head around glaring them into submission.

            Heh heh, that's a pretty cool phrase.

            Upon this, the cheerleaders responded half-heartedly "Love stinks…"

            "Yeah, yeah!"

            "Love stinks?"

            "Yeah, yeah!  Two by two, and side by side, lo—find you, yes it—all I can say is—yeah, ye—shool—minks—all—love st—"

            And finally the CD just stopped playing the song altogether.

            The cheerleaders slumped and stared at the stereo for a long time until the wire short circuited, sputtered out a few sparks, fizzled and the left speaker caved in.

            An extremely long silence followed.

            "Well, uh, we don't need music for your guys' entertainment, do we?!" principal Zidler encouraged, now stepping onto the gym floor with the microphone.

            "Uh, yeah we do.  I can't sing without music," the spiffy cheerleader said.

            "Just improvise, Satine," Zidler suggested, standing aside.

            And so the cheerleader known as Satine rolled her eyes, and cued her comrades to start up another routine.

            It was the same routine.

            "Go!  MRHS!  Go!  Go!  MRHS!  Go!  Go!  MRHS!  Go!"

            Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over…

            "So, is it all set up?" Satine muttered through an exaggerated grin the principal as she clapped, stuck a fist in the air and clapped.

            "All set.  Are you sure you'll be able to handle it?" Zidler muttered back.

            "Oh yeah.  I'm fine.  So where is he?"

            "Somewhere in the nerd section probably."

            Satine stole a glance to the left of her to quickly scan the nerd section in search of this mysterious person.

            Oooooo!

            "Why's she looking over here?" Christian asked Toulouse.

            Toulouse didn't answer.  He was currently receiving an atomic wedgie by some big scruffy looking dude that could pass for either Crabbe or Doyle.

            …You know.  Harry Potter.

            "MAKE IT STOP!!!  MAKE IT STOP!!!" Toulouse was screaming as he kicked his legs through the empty air in agony.

            Zidler squinted his eyes to see better.

            "Ah, he's the one giving that midget nerd a wedgie!  HAHAHAHA!  Lookit him go!"

            "Hey, um, can you like put my friend down?" Christian timidly requested to the big lug.  The big lug, however, only gave him a piercing glare underneath his unibrow.  "Uh…please?"

            "All right, Kronk.  That's enough, let him go," came a high, squeaky rodent-like voice from behind Christian.

            Before Christian could see where the voice came from, the Crabbe/Doyle dude let go of Toulouse's tighty whities, allowing only his ass to cushion him.

            "Owwww…"

            After Satine completed her series of back hand-springs, she had a look in the direction of the principal's gaze.

            Christian heaved Toulouse up and set him back on the bleachers.

            "Ooo, spiffiness," Satine concluded, returning to her lame-ass routine.

            "Hey, now, that wasn't very nice," Christian said as he turned and faced the owner of the high, squeaky, rodent-like voice.

            The dude looked like a cross between Malfoy and a mouse.

            Harry Potter again.

            "I know it wasn't nice," he sneered back at Christian, flicking his nose.  "That's why I did it.  Would you like to join your friend in his agony?"

            They both looked down at Toulouse who was twitching and spazzing from the pain in his ass crack.

            "Can't…feew my…wegs…"

            "No, not really but that still wasn't very nice and you shouldn't pick on people like that."  Christian felt kinda proud of himself for acting courageous, especially since he was known back in Michigan for being the biggest pussy to ever walk the earth.

            Even the teachers made fun of him.  They called him Kristin Skimpy-wean.  I mean, that has to be pretty low if the TEACHERS mock you.  Heh heh…sorry.

            "Oh, well thank you for that insightful advice, friend.  Kronk."  The rodent dude snapped his fingers and the manservant got a death-grip on Christian's underwear and yanked up.

            "Meeeep!" Christian squeaked before being pitched down the stairs, landing on Pupitre's unconscious body.

            "Very good, Kronk.  Go get the snack!"  Ratman whipped out a dog biscuit from his pocket and tossed it in the air.

            "Got it!" Kronk yipped, jumping up for the airborne treat, only to biff over the bleachers and fall on his back, crushing a few of the smaller nerds.

            Feeling numb from the waist down, Christian groaned in agony as he attempted to roll off the top of Pupitre and landed on his back on the hard gym floor.

            As he looked up, however, he saw an unfamiliar, yet welcoming face.

            "I believe you were expecting me," Satine purred.

            "Uhhh…" was all that came out of Christian's mouth.

            "Of course you were expecting me!" Satine squealed, grabbing Christian's arm and yanking him up.

            "Uh, okay…"

            Then, Satine turned to the crowd of dazed students.

            "It's—ah, forget it.  Let's just randomly dance."

            Before he knew it, Christian was gettin' down with his bad self in front of the entire school with some cheerleader he didn't even know.

            It was awesome.

            Also before he knew it, a very grotesque, disturbing, obscene, and all around BAD song started up from the half-mutilated boom box.

            "Meet you in the red room, close the door and dim the lights…"

            Satine threw her head back and laughed maniacally at the sound of these very grotesque, disturbing, obscene and all around BAD lyrics and immediately sang along.

            "I will be yours truly if indeed the price is right."

            "I like that show," Greg muttered to Steve.

            "THIS SONG!" he spazzed, clawing empty air.  "THIS SONG IS THE DEVIL'S WORDS!  EEEEEEEVIL!!!"  Suddenly, but without any surprise from Greg, Steve went into cardiac arrest and tumbled down the steps, joining Pupitre in a very painful manner.

            Greg looked around and realized he had the entire row of bleachers to himself. He felt left out and decided to deliberately trip himself and collapse down the steps.

            "So draw your sword—"

            "Muhgoo?!" Christian sputtered, looking down to see if it was, in fact, _en garde_.

            It wasn't.

            Phew.

            "Be my king, let your passions rise and sing, just show me the diamonds and I'll let you wear my ring."

            "Bad idea, sister," comment one extremely freakish teacher, not glancing up from his Vanity Fair mag.  But we'll get to him later.

            "So just lay down the side, let us consummate," Satine purred, wrapping her arms around Christian's shoulders and getting a little too close to his face.  "I know you're bursting, let me help you deflate."

            "Eh heh heh…"  Christian's eyes shifted around nervously as he tried to wriggle away from Satine's death grip.

            "If you want to plug in for a high voltage connection, show me cold hard cash and I will turn on my affection.  Ooo, ah, ah—"

            "OH-kay!  We're not going to go into that part, are we, Satine?" Principal Zidler butted in.  "Let's try to keep it PG-13, okay?"

            However, he forgot the stereo was still blaring out that very grotesque, disturbing, obscene and all around BAD part of the song in which the singer just starts moaning for 30 seconds.

            All throughout the moaning, everyone just kinda stood there, staring at the boom box until it reached the second verse.  Satine continued her mindless exotic dancing.

            "So don't hesitate, I won't kiss and tell, no need to worry cuz, uh, hee hee, I'm a professional."

            "Oh?"  Christian looked to his friends for help but only saw an empty row in the bleachers.

            Some friends.

            "The show can start as soon as I see money on the table, I've an empty space to fill, I'm willing if you're able."

            As fate would have it, right when the moaning started back up, the very grotesque, disturbing, obscene and all around BAD song just stopped altogether just before it exploded, leaving a hole in the gym floor.

            "Goddammit," grumbled Satine.  "Now we have to stop randomly dancing."

            "Fine by me," Christian grinned, stepping back.  WAY back.

            "Well, you heard the song," Satine said, handing Christian a card.

            Before he could read it, he was immediately grabbed by two cheerleaders and dragged back to the bleachers.

            "Wait—"

            "Schpirit schtick!" announced one of the cheerleaders who was actually clinically insane before sending the surprisingly hard spirit stick bashing into the side of Christian's skull.

            Christian passed out as an obvious result.

            "Nice going, Nini," muttered the other cheerleader, letting Christian's body collapse on the pile of his friends.

            Except for Toulouse, who was currently receiving a swirlie from the walking rat and his minion.

            "Schorry," the insane cheerleader drooled, grinning.  Her teeth looked like Legos.

            …Wait, they WERE Legos.

            It was time for Satine and the other cheerleaders to skip merrily off and out of the gym for the rest of the retarded assembly to continue.

            "Bye!  Go MRHS!  Spirit fingers!  Wheee!" Satine squealed, skipping off, waving her, yes, spirit fingers.

            "Woo!  Heh heh…Woo!" muttered the others who were just flailing their arms and tripping over themselves.

            "MRHS!  Number one!  Go, fight wi—" Satine's yips were cut short when she slammed into the wall and fell backwards.

            Naturally, the other cheerleaders did the same.

            "Whoopsiedoodle!" Zidler chuckled, not actually finding this humorous.  "Maybe they should watch where they're going so they don't miss the door!"

            After two and a half minutes, no movement was coming from any of the cheerleaders.

            "All right, everybody go back to class."

            No movement came from the students either.

            "Seriously, kids.  Go back to class.  It's over."

            The more aware students processed the message and abandoned the bleachers.

            In the meantime, Zidler rushed over to the unconscious cheerleaders but was only concerned about one.

            This was proved by him stepping on the others' squishy bodies to get to her.

            He bent down to Satine and lifted her head up.  He groaned.

            "Oh, I am fortune's fool.  What thyne eyes hath ne'er done thy work in the nightingale's call in the morn.  Or that thou washeth thy lips with the sweet sorrowful woes of the lark's untimely—"

            "I'm okay," Satine muttered, who had actually woken up on his fourth word.

            "Oh."  Zidler whipped his hands out from underneath her head, letting her fall again.  "Uh, I usually don't quote Shakespeare…ever."

            "That's great, cuz—"

            "Oh Satine!  Aren't you just excited about this?  Your first…uh, actually, it's not quite your FIRST but isn't it grand?!"

            "Not really…"

            "Well…have fun anyways!"  Zidler skipped off, squashing some of the other cheerleaders in the process.

            "I can handle this," Satine said mindlessly as she sat there among the scattered bodies.  "I can totally handle this.  I'm cool…"

            Her left eye twitched.

§

Ugh.  This WILL get better…hopefully.  In the meantime, go meander into the favorites list and read that stuff.  GO!

Ewan:  Fleeeee!


	4. Meet Dukey!

Most of you know the reason for my delay. As for the rest of you – I'll never tell! You'll have to kill me first which wouldn't be such a good idea because then you'll never know anyways. So it's just best not to know in the first place. Hmm…reviews.

Paige: Those quotes from Adrien were from his acceptance speech when he won the Oscar. Blah! Oh, sure! I'll vote for Bush! Yeah, I really want my two cousins to get blown up in Iraq, pay more for gas and face another four years of high terror threats and a bullshit government!

Bud: Nice going. Now that's going to be stuck in my head for another three weeks.

Midnight Proc: Mr. Jolly = Mr. Walton. And no, Billy Bob, I do NOT have any moonsh!

Heather the Off-White: You're lucky. At least you don't go to a snotty preppy rich high school filled with rich anorexic snobs. Yes, have pity on me.

Fufulupin: …Yes, I know it's Crabbe and Goyle. (Looks around) Mmm, butt meat.

Eax: HAY! Crack is whack! And it's nothing to joke about! Tsk. Principle Butler ziddled! Yay! (writes it down on the list of spiffy quotes)

Frotu: Do you know Ethan Hawke? Actually, I'm not finished with this. Nor did I write more of Jack the Ripper. And there ARE fireflies in Wiscaaaaaansin. But yours is dead, yah? Wahhh… Now you must eat his ass to survive!

Ewan (Aside): She just watched Alive.

Oh, BTW, I'm listening to your CD even though I hate 90% of the songs on it. Blah ha ha!

Nonya/The Wow/ShaneMandy4ever/ShaneMandy/ShaneMandy's anonymous minion who is too much of a pussy to leave an e-mail address: Awww! Your insult has cut me deep! I am so upset and now I'm going to make a big deal about how you didn't even read my stuff but flamed it anyways so you could justify your shit story! Now I'm so incredibly depressed that you have spoken the truth and now I'm going to give up my license to write and hang myself in my closet! Ahhh Gahd! Ah hahahahahhh! (Kicks you in the shin) Go away.

V, Leader of Amoi: I'm picking up on your sarcasm. … And now you say "Well, you better be because I'm laying it on pretty thick." (Eyeballs suspiciously) Do you want some turkey?

Poisondrop: I only worship God, silly goosey. What do I look like? A bloody atheist? (Bows to shrine of the FON Baby)

Thanks to everyone who reviewed. You now have my permission – if I die, you may eat me.

This chapter is extremely long…proceed with caution.

------------------------------

"Does anyone know what's practiced in Togo? Anyone? Anyone?"

Christian, who was very much sobered up by now, slumped in his desk, his chin propped up on his hand, and thought of the encounter with the cheerleader named Satine. She didn't seem like anybody else at this school. Therefore, she seemed normal.

Then he remembered the card.

"Anyone? Something D-O-O economics. Voodoo economics."

Christian read over the card several times. Each time it read: "Meet you in the Red Room. Well, it's not exactly called the Red Room because it's actually a portable. Anyways, meet me there after school and be prepared to have the time of your life. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Love, Satine the spiffy cheerleader."

Red portable? How could he find a red portable?

…Oh, right.

"Does anyone know the name of our current president? Anyone? Anyone? I'll give you a hint. His first name is George. His last name is Bush. Does anyone know? Anyone? His name is George Bush. Somebody just say 'His name is George Bush'. Anyone? Anyone? Please, for the love of God answer me for once. Anyone? Class, do you pay attention to me or am I just talking to the floor? Anyone? Does anyone know why I'm talking? Anyone? Does anyone know what my purpose on this earth is? Anyone? Anyone? Would it make any difference if I threw myself out of this second story window? Anyone?"

The teacher took off his glasses, strode to the window, lifted the pane and leaped out.

Christian sighed and looked at the clock. This was going to be a long day.

§

Well, he never thought he would, but he did. He actually found the red portable. It was, in fact, a portable, and it was, to his utter surprise, red. Why it was red, nobody knew or even cared to know. Christian certainly didn't care. He just wanted to get it over with.

Exactly what did this Satine chick want with him? Did she want to get him in there so she could take away his big "V" and never give it back?

It didn't matter. He had his pepper spray with him if such an opportunity came up.

Creaking the door open…hey, even the DOOR was red! HAHAHAHA! Wow. Anyways, creaking the door open, the daylight seeped inside, slowly illuminating the dark portable.

"Uh, Satine?" Christian called into the vacant room. "Is anybody here?"

He looked around, closed the door and looked cautiously around the room.

"Wow, you actually showed up," came Satine's silky voice from behind him, causing Christian to whirl around in surprise, lose his balance and topple over the Brett Favre shrine set up by the wall.

"Oh, sorry about that," Christian apologized.

"Don't worry about it," Satine reassured, replacing a scented candle he knocked over. "Let's just get it over and done with."

Waaaaaaaaiiiiiiit! Let's go back so the readers know what's really going on.

§

Christian Lenin the Communist Penguin did his part by holding the little card saying "Earlier That Day…" and disappeared from the story forever.

§

Since Satine had early finish, she didn't have to go to sixth period and spent the entire hour preparing for her rendezvous with the spiffy guy known as Christian.

Look, I used a French word! I feel so smart!

"Let's see…should I wear my hair up, down, half up, or babushka?" She hesitated before pulling the little red babushka out of her backpack and trying it on. "Nah, too Russian."

Suddenly, the sound of a toilet flushing startled her halfway to a cardiac arrest and she whirled around to see the councilor, Mrs. Chumpmonkey, emerging from one of the stalls.

"So, Satine, off to your 'poetry reading'?" she snickered, displaying moldering teeth.

"Um, Mrs. Chumpmonkey, the toilet…" Satine craned her head around to watch the water spill out of the toilet bowl and onto the floor.

"Ah, poop," she muttered. Instead of doing anything about it, she slammed the stall door and tried to ignore it. "So do you find this any reason to be out of class?"

"Well, I don't…I don't have…" Satine found it extremely difficult to say anything because of the water sploshing her ankles. "I don't have sixth period so…I'm taking this—"

"Yah, sure. We'll just see about that, won't we?" With that, Mrs. Chumpmonkey, grabbed Satine by the arm and escorted her out.

§

"So what have we learned from this experience, Chompy?" Principal Zidler asked a half-alert goth sitting across from him with his tongue stapled to his upper lip.

"Nahh tho smahk in clash?"

"BESIDES that."

"Uhhhhhhhhhh…" Zidler glowered at the puddle of drool on his desk getting bigger and bigger. "Dahn't pluh wuth shtahplesh?"

"Very good, Chompy," he congratulated as he took the staple remover and yanked out the metal in the goth's face.

"AAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!" he responded.

"Whoopsiedoodle. Got two of your nose piercings instead, there. All righty, let's try this again…" He made sure the hooks were firmly around the staple and tugged, releasing the goth's swollen tongue. "Now skidaddle on back to class, Chompy and don't go cloggin' your noggin with too much knowledge!"

"Guhhh…" he replied as he shuffled out of the office.

"Goddamn kids in this Goddamn school. Why the hell am I fucking living?" he muttered before looking up and seeing Satine and Mrs. Chumpmonkey standing in the doorway, a bit taken aback by his statement.

"Yes, may I help you ladies?" he pleasantly asked, trying to compose himself.

"I found her in the bathroom during 6th and kept hearing her debating on how to look for this little 'powwow' of hers."

"All right, thank you, Claire. I'll take care of it," Zidler replied.

"My name's Helga, you dip," she muttered as she hobbled out, picking her wedgie.

Satine plopped down in a chair and broke it on impact. Slightly humiliated, she pulled up another and decided to sit slowly into it.

"So, Satine, what exactly are you planning to do after school?" Zidler asked folding his hands, squeezing them together and pulling them apart, revealing a paper swan!

"You're overreacting. Don't worry about me, I'll be fine…" Satine whirled her head around to face the nonexistent audience. "…_Dad!!!_"

Out of the second drawer of the file cabinet came Woodland Creature.

"Dun dun dun!"

Out of the bottom drawer of the adjacent file cabinet came a random goth.

"Woah, where am I?" he droned as he climbed out and stumbled around.

"Well, you can never be too cautious. There's a perfectly good example of what guys around here are like," Zidler said, pointing to the random goth, barely getting past the doorframe. "I just want you to be careful in that little red portable."

"But, Dad, this kid isn't from around here. He's from…" Satine whirled around and made another imposing face to the nonexistent audience, "…_Boise, Idaho!_"

"Dun dun dun!" Woodland Creature announced once more, popping out of a flower vase.

"It doesn't matter. You never know what he may be up to…" Zidler's eyes shifted suspiciously from side to side. Then they rested upon his label on the desk.

"Why does my name have to be Harold?" he grumbled lifting it up as if it were a rancid piece of string cheese he found in a Best Western bathroom. "I've always wanted my name to be Steve. Why can't my name be Steve?"

"It can be Steve." Satine suggested.

"Really? Okay! From now on, my name is Steve Zidler!"

"But, Dad, there's already someone in this story called Steve. If you go by Steve, it'll confuse the readers."

"No, it won't! That's nonsense! These readers aren't THAT stupid." There was a long pause. "Well, all right, then change the other Steve's name."

Said and done.

"Well, now that that's taken care of, you go off and have fun with your poetry reading if you know what I mean. Ooom ooom!"

Satine rolled her eyes. She loved her father—Steve, not Harold, Steve—but sometimes she wanted to strangle him, beat him with a mace, gouge out his eyes, carve his body out with a chainsaw, sic genetically enhanced sewer rats on him and do a river dance on his bones.

But for now, she was only worried about which poem she should read to her one chance of getting a scholarship.

All right, more plot points. Satine's family can't afford to have her go to acting school. (For some reason, she thinks she can be an actress. Don't dwell in it, okay? Okay.) But they want their daughter to succeed in life so they wrote to J.R. Simplot in Boise, Idaho and begged him to have him pay for her college tuition. Since he was the 6th richest man in America, they figured he had quite a bit of money. Plus an American flag the size of GollumRox's garage…anyways, Simplot agreed to it only if Satine would give his grandnephew—well, um, his nephew's son, whatever you would call that—a little somethin' somethin' to remember her by when she became famous. And being so innocent despite being so slutty, she hadn't the slightest idea he actually meant a little somethin' somethin'. What she thought he meant was to write a poem called "A Little Somethin' Somethin'". She was great at writing poetry…okay, she wasn't. But it was her one shot at fame, fortune, and warm pancakes.

It had to be done.

Pretty spiffy plot, eh?

So anyways, Satine wanted to make herself look pretty and spiffy for Simplot's grandnephew or whatever since he wasn't too shabby-lookin' either. The problem was, she had no idea Christian wasn't, in fact, Simplot's grandnephew or whatever the hell you call it, but he was in actuality Christian Iggins Timperline.

And so the plot thickens…

"Like thick and nutty chocolate. Ha ha…ha ha," commented Sauron.

§

Back to the present…or future…whatever.

"Get WHAT over and done with?" Christian asked nervously, backing up against the wall.

"Oh, just a little thing. It'll be really quick."

"Uh huh…" Christian's hand found the pepper spray in his pocket. "Okay, great. So, uh, where's the bed?"

Satine cocked an eyebrow. "What bed? This is a portable."

His mouth dropped open. "You mean we're supposed to do it standing up?!"

"Well, yeah. Or you can sit in that chair over there."

Christian was at a loss for words.

Don't you just love the irony? Buah ha ha!

"But aren't _I_ supposed to be the one standing?!"

Satine gave him an extra confused look. She figured money must screw up the brain.

"Well, actually," Christian sputtered, "I wouldn't know, I've never DONE it before!"

"You've never done it? Not even in middle school?"

His face writhed into a look of shock and disgust. "WHAT KIND OF STATE IS THIS?!"

"Oh, things must be different in Idaho."

"Idaho?! I'm from Michigan!"

"Idaho, Michigan, same difference. They're both stupid and boring."

Christian considered this with a shrug. Especially since the first time he'd heard of Idaho was three years ago when his teacher had to ask the principal what it was. Then the principal had to look it up on the encyclopedia and later informed them that it was, in fact, an actual state.

"So are you gonna sit or not?" Satine urged, growing a bit impatient.

"No! Back off, you whore!" Christian whipped out his pepper spray and ripped off the cap.

Satine folded her arms and rolled her eyes in response.

"Now, I'm gonna slowly go out the door and you better not make any sudden moves." Satine examined the nails on her left hand for a bit. "I mean it, now. Don't move!"

Christian used his hand to find the door as he walked backwards, pointing the can at Satine, ready to fire any second.

"Just stay back, like a good whore…" Christian fumbled behind him for the handle.

"I wouldn't—" but before Satine could finish her little warning, Christian freaked out and went crazy with the spray. He whirled around and grabbed the door handle and tugged.

And tugged and tugged.

And tugged.

"It's stuck!" Captain Obvious announced, tugging harder.

"Yeah, about that…" Satine began, advancing towards him. "I forgot this portable locks on the inside. So we're kinda stuck here."

"What?!" Christian demanded, spinning around to face Satine. "And how come your face isn't swelling and burning?"

"You had it pointed the wrong way. But you made a pretty big cloud over there."

They turned to see a huge mass of pepper particles floating around in the middle of the room.

"Just don't walk into in or anything…" she offered, examining the nails on her right hand.

"Wait, what do you mean we're stuck here?! You mean there's no way out?!"

"Pretty much. That should've been in mind when I remembered why nobody uses it anymore."

There was an extremely long pause as Christian stared wide-eyed at Satine in disbelief.

"…Well, maybe someone will randomly decide to come in here and they'll be able to help us out," Satine suggested, making herself comfortable in the chair. "But I doubt it."

"I can't believe this!" Christian shouted, frantically running around the room. He found a closet and went to it. "Are you saying that everybody who comes in here never comes out?!" he stopped short as his eyes fell upon three skeletons huddled inside the closet.

Satine joined him in his stare.

"Guess not," she said.

That was a bit too much for Christian.

"I'M GONNA DIE!!!" he screamed, flailing his arms and running helplessly around the portable. "I'M GONNA DIE IN A PORTABLE!!!"

"Hey, it's not SO bad," Satine offered, closing the closet door. "It can always get worse."

"Oh yeah? HOW can it POSSIBLY get worse?!" Christian demanded.

The two of them flinched and huddled a bit, knowing that something worse HAD to happen, since that was the rule in a good comedy, even though it was pretty redundant.

But things stayed the same.

"Well, I guess that means it CAN'T get worse," Satine shrugged.

"Oh, this is just GREAT!" Christian growled. "You mean to tell me this window won't open?!" He leaped on the window sill and tried to heave up the pane.

Satine sighed and decided to lie down on the floor and watch what she still thought was J.R. Simplot's kid nearly throw out his back trying to open the window that had been welded shut to keep from the suicidals trying to throw themselves from the building.

But…they didn't weld shut the windows that are two stories up?

…

This school WAS messed up.

"So do you just want to get it done with anyways?" Satine suggested.

"No!" he grunted. "I'm not going to lose my virginity to a cheerleader I don't even know in a frickin' portable!"

"Lose your virginity?" Satine inquired, sitting bolt upright.

Christian let his arms drop and he turned to face Satine. "Yes, I'm a virgin, okay? You got a problem with that?"

"No, I was just wondering why you think you'll lose your virginity in here."

Christian rolled his eyes and commenced to kick the window sill in efforts to try and knock it loose. "Don't play dumb," Christian grunted in between kicks, making him sound constipated.

"Well, I'm JUST going to read some poetry to you."

"Oh, is THAT what you call it now? Jeez. Well, it all means the same thing and I refuse to do it, especially now, especially to YOU."

"Well, I think you'd be used to it by now. I'd think you'd have little servants and concubines to do it all the time to you."

Christian's jaw dropped. "CONCUBINES?!"

§

Toulouse, Greg, Jerry, and Pupitre came to a halt at the lot of portables.

"So…which one's the Red Portable?" Greg asked.

"Creyo està a la izquierda," Pupitre stated. Everyone looked at him. "…The left one."

"No, I think it's somewhewe back thewe," Toulouse stated, pointing over yonder.

"Well, since it's called the RED Portable, don't you think we should be looking for a portable that's RED?!" screamed Jerry.

"Well, not necessarily. The Red Sea is blue," Greg intelligently said.

"Ahhhhh…"

"They could be in that red one. The one nobody ever uses anymore," Pupitre said.

"Why would they be in a portable nobody USES ANYMORE?! IT MAKES NO SENSE!!!"

"Cawm down, Jewwy. Maybe we shouwd just go awound aww the powtabwes and wook inside to see which one they'we in."

"Spiffy!" they all agreed.

Except for Pupitre who passed at the word "we".

§

"That's bulletproof glass," Satine said as she lay facedown on the floor, obviously bored out of her mind. Christian had given up kicking the window and decided to try taking a baseball bat to the glass.

"Bulletproof, maybe, but not BASEBALL BATPROOF!!!"

Satine sighed heavily and decided to try a new position on the floor. She knelt on the floor and laid back so her back was flat against the floor.

"Doesn't that hurt you?" Christian asked, looking over.

"I'm a cheerleader," she said. "I can touch my toes with the top of my head."

"Yick," he responded, resuming his window smashing frenzy.

"Will you just STOP it, Simplot? You're not going to be able to break it."

"Simplot? What kind of insult is that?" Christian asked, dropping the bat.

"It's your name, you dip," Satine grumbled. "What, you can't tell an average word from your name now?"

"What are you talking about?!"

Satine lost it.

"You know what?! I'm sick of this! Just because you're rich and everything doesn't mean I have to treat you like your shit doesn't stink! Now SIT down!" Satine shoved a very shocked Christian down into the spiffy chair and ripped out a piece of paper from her pocket.

"Ahem! 'The Freshman' by Satine Zidler! _'When I was young, I knew everything, she a punk who rarely ever took advice—'"_

"Oh, my GOD! Is this how you break the ice or something?!" Christian demanded. "That's a frickin' SONG for God's sake!"

"Well, ex-CUSE me, Mr. Perfect!" she screamed, throwing down the paper. "It just so happens that I can't write poetry to save my life!"

"That doesn't make it right for you to plagiarize!"

"Shut up," she concluded, folding her arms and turning away.

"Why are you reading poetry anyways? Aren't you supposed to be in my pants by now?"

"What?! What kind of a slut do you take me for?"

"Well, for one, your nametag says 'Hi, I'm Satine, the wonder slut'. Secondly, why else would you have me meet you in a red portable after school after that exotic dance and seductive-looking card you gave me?"

"To read poetry."

§

"Chwistian?"

"Christian?"

"ChrISTian?"

The three of them were busy peeping through the windows of the portables calling for Christian but only finding either an empty room or two teachers doing things that cannot be mentioned in a PG-13 story.

"AHH! VILE! VILE! VILE!!!" Jerry fumbled for his inhaler and Toulouse clamped a hand over his mouth. "MMM! MMMM! MMMM! MMMMM!!!!"

"Shut up, Jewwy! They'ww heaw us!" Toulouse hissed.

"Ay! What are you kids doing out here?" bellowed one of the teachers from the adjacent portable just as the two teachers opened their door to see who was screaming. "Mr. Harm?! Mrs. Boester?!" he exclaimed, noticing them.

"Mr. Tucker?! Mr. Wells?!"

"It's not what it looks like!"

"Then why aren't you wearing any pants?"

"Hey, keep it down! Can't we have a "meeting" in peace?! You're all so NOISY!"

"YOU should talk, Mrs. Thomas!"

"Uh, let's leave," Greg offered and the four of them bolted off.

They didn't bolt off for a very long distance, however. Nope, they were stopped short at the sight of the evil rodent dude and his genetically enlarged henchman.

"Eep! Hide!" Toulouse squeaked, as he and the rest of them leaped behind a cardboard cutout of a bush. "Shhhhh…"

And so they eavesdropped.

"…And when this is over with, I think I'll do it again. And again and again until my lust is fulfilled. Mwehehe! How does that sound, Kronk?"

"Is you sure about doing it to donkey?" Kronk grunted.

"Yessss."

"But why not girl instead?"

"Fine, fine. I'll do it to the girl and THEN to the donkey."

"Me think no."

"Well, what do you know, Kronk? You didn't even pass the 5th grade."

The two of them continued bickering until they were out of earshot.

"Hmm. I wondew what those two are doing here," Toulouse mused.

"Maybe they're hunting you down to torture you more," Greg suggested.

"VILE!" Jerry twitched.

§

"So what's your purpose here, Mr. Simplot?" Satine asked, perched on top of a desk.

"I'm NOT Mr. Simplot! I'm Mr. James! Er, no that's not it. It's…uh, Timperline!"

"Could you not remember your own last name?"

"No, actually it changes every year or so."

During the long awkward silence, two sets of footsteps were heard, one of them like so much a rat scurrying up a platform and the other sounding like someone had cinderblocks tied to their feet trying to walk.

"Eep! Someone's coming!" Satine shrieked.

"Isn't that a good thing?"

"…Yes. But hide just in case!" Satine shoved Christian in the closet, completely forgetting about the rotted corpses and slammed the door just as the knock came.

"Who is it?" Satine called out, leaning against the closet door, trying to drown out Christian's screams as he had an inconvenient encounter with the corpses.

"Eeet's meeeeeee," came the mousy voice.

"Who's meeeeeee?"

"Dukey Simplot."

"Dukey? That's your name?"

"Yeeeeesss…" came the annoyed mouse's voice.

"All right, come in, then." Seconds later, she realized something. "Wait, don't shut the— "Simplot and Kronk were already in the room shutting the door completely when she stopped. "…door."

"Why, you're even hotter than the pictures I've seen of you on Woof."

"Kronk, please keep your comments to yourself," Simplot glowered at Kronk, not even showing the least bit of pride of him using a complete sentence along with correct grammar. "Forgive him, my pet. He meant to say that you're very attractive."

"Right. So um, is he going to stay or what?"

"Do you want him to stay and watch?"

"Well, not really but he can't leave anyways."

"How do you mean?"

"Nothing. Let's just get this over with."

"Yes, let's!" Dukey Simplot chirped, taking off his preppy tie. "I need to get home to Gertrude the Donkey and ha…what's that?"

"My poem," Satine said, plopping against the wall of the portable.__

"Wait, wait, wait, you're reading me POETRY? What…what fun is that? I thought—"

"Look, just because I'm a cheerleader with sexy hair, a big chest, and a nametag that says 'Satine the Wonder Slut' DOESN'T mean I have to bang every guy I meet! Now sit down, shut up and listen to my poetry! I worked really hard on it!"

"Yeah, it's real hard work to listen to the song and write down all the words," Christian bitterly muttered as he sat inside the closet, keeping a safe distance from the dead people.

"Poetry sucks. But whatever. The only poetry I like is the kind in a song form."

Satine stopped and forced herself to look at his face.

"Especially my favorite song of all time: 'The Freshman' by the Verve Pipe. Why, I know that song by heart." His eyes closed as he lifted his hand passionately and made a sad attempt to sing. "_When I was young I knew everytheeeeeng, she a punk who rarely ever took advice, now I'm guilt-stricken sobbin' with my head on the FLO! Thinks about her now and how he never really wept he saaaaaaid, can't be held responsible…"_

Satine smacked her forehead.

Hard.

Christian acknowledged her distress and realized she was screwed with a capital S. So he decided to help out. Quickly, he grabbed the itty bitty notepad from his pocket and took the pencil from behind his ear and scribbled down the first thing he could think of.

"_For the life of me-EEEE, I cannot remember what made us think that we were wise and we'd never compromise! For the live of me-EEEE…"_

"Ugh." Satine wished she had a screwdriver in her hand so that she'd be able to put both Dukey and herself out of their misery.

And perhaps Kronk as a bonus.

As she thought these things, a crumpled piece of paper hit her in the face and she snapped out of her trance to pick it up. On the paper, there was a poem written on it, scribbled as if a blind mentally challenged person tried to write with his left hand.

Considering he was right-handed.

"_My best friend took a weeeeeeek's vacation to forgetter! His girl—"_

"You know, I'd really like you to continue your song, but I need to read my poem to you."

"Well, FINE!"

After a moment of silence…

"Do you think I'd be good enough for American Idol?"

"'Your Bong' by Sa—"

"Song!" Christian hissed from the closet, barely quiet enough for Dukey not to hear him.

"'Your SONG' by Satine Zidler. I can't even read my own handwriting. Ahem. _It's a little bit funny, this feeling inside, I'm not one of those who can easily hide"_

"Ooo," complimented Dukey.

"'_I don't have much money, but if I did, I'd buy a big house where we both could live'"_

"Well, I already have 9 houses that are probably bigger than the one you're thinking of. By the way, 'did' and 'live' don't even rhyme."

"_'If I were a sculptor, but then again no, or a man who makes potions in a traveling show'"_

"You'd be a man for me? That's, um…flattering."

"'_I know it's not much, but it's the best I can do, my gift is my song and this one's for you. And you can tell everybody that this is your song'_

"I don't think they'd care," he muttered under his breath.

She heard him anyways and kicked him in the shin.

"_'It may be quite simple but now that it's done, hope you don't mind, I hope you don't mind that I put down in words, how wonderful life is now you're in the mold.'"_

"World!" Christian corrected…a little too loudly.

"Who, what, when, where?" Dukey demanded, twisting his head around in all directions.

Satine did the first thing she thought of. And that was to grab Simplot's mousy face and plant her lips on his.

"Oooooo!" Kronk observed and started taking pictures.

"Ah God!" Christian shouted in disgust.

Yes, he shouted. Real smart, eh?

"Okay, who is that?!" Simplot screeched, ripping himself from Satine. "There's someone in there!" Christian ducked inside the closet just in time as Dukey looked in his direction. "THERE'S A CLOWN IN HERE!!! HE'S HIDING SOMEWHERE IN HERE, I KNOW IT!!!"

"Uh, relax. There's no clown. Just me, you, and that guy. Put away the camera, man!"

Kronk groaned and stuffed the camera in his mouth. Unfortunately, he forgot cameras weren't edible and began to choke on it.

"But I heard a voice! It came from that closet! Someone's in here!" Dukey hissed, paying no attention to Kronk's gagging.

"I swear, there's nobody—"

Due to a feather that wanted to say hello to Christian but ended up swiping his nose instead, an extremely loud sneeze came from the closet and Christian's body tumbled out immediately after.

For a while, everyone just stared at each other except for Kronk who was now blue in the face and grasping the whiteboard in attempts to get air in his lungs.

"Uh, hi. I'm the janitor," Christian blurted out stupidly.

"Yeah, he's the janitor!" Satine confirmed quickly.

"Well, hello janitor. Where are you when someone decides to blow chunks in the hall after a good two periods of drinking and smokin' a good j?"

"Who said that?" Dukey asked, whirling around.

Oh, it was only Steve, not Harold, Zidler.

"Hellooooo," he grinned. "How are things?"

Behind him, Satine and Christian saw the door was swinging shut.

"DON'T SHUT THE—"

Too late, it closed.

"…Door."

"Oh, my, what's wrong with that fellow?" Steve asked, noticing Kronk lying on the floor.

"He's just being a drama queen. Pay no attention. He'll realize nobody's watching and get bored and stop," assured Dukey.

Seven minutes passed and no movement came from Kronk.

"Oh, well, I guess he finally keeled over," Dukey suggested without a single tone of remorse in his voice.

Jeez, what a heartless bastard.

"Dad, we're locked in," Satine pouted to Zidler.

"Oh, well, it's lucky for us, we have this janitor with us! He has the keys to all the rooms in the school! He'll let us out, bumblebee!"

Everybody turned to Christian, except for Kronk who was dead, and waited for him to make a move.

"Um…I don't have the keys…with me." He smiled big, hoping that would change things.

Seeing his wide grin, everybody completely forgot why they were looking at him in the first place.

"Well, hello, Mr. Simplot!" Zidler greeted, slapping him on the back. "I see you and Satine are having a wonderful time in here, isn't that right?"

"Her poem was spiffy, Zidler. I liked it."

"You did? I mean, of COURSE you did! Everybody likes Satine's poetry! Isn't that right, Satine?!"

"Actually, she didn't wr—" Christian began explaining but was cut off by Satine stomping her heel into his foot. Too bad he didn't understand her future was lying on this fib.

"Who the fork are you?" Zidler asked Christian, noticing him.

"He's the school janitor," Dukey answered, shoving Christian into a local wall. "Nobody important. Anyways, I want to tell you about her writing—"

"He heard me recite my poem and he liked it a lot," she said, lifting Christian up from the floor and nudging him.

"Uhhhhhhhhhh…what?" everybody asked. Except for Kronk who was dead.

The door flew open and Toulouse, Jerry and Greg ran inside.

"I THOUGHT that was you we saw thwough the wi—"

"DON'T SHUT THE—"

Greg pulled the door shut and noticed everybody was in a position to charge towards him. "What?"

The air filled with everybody's sighs.

"Oh, spiffy. Not only are we locked in here, but now there's seven people in here to take up all the oxygen. We're all gonna suffocate," Dukey groaned.

"You forgot about the dead guy so he's make eight," Christian corrected haughtily.

"Dead people don't breathe," Satine corrected haughtily.

"We're all gonna DIE??!!!!" Jerry screamed and whipped out his inhaler.

"Yeah, pretty much," Satine said.

"AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!" came the response of not only Jerry, but Toulouse, Greg, Dukey, Satine and Christian.

Zidler felt left out and decided to scream too.

"Hey, what's everybody screaming about?" Pupitre asked, standing in the doorway.

Naturally, they didn't hear him over their noise and as a result didn't answer him. So Pupitre just shrugged and came inside, letting the door close behind him.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait!" Christian yelled over them. "If we keep screaming like this, we'll need to take more breaths and we'll run out of oxygen sooner."

This didn't really help at all. It only got Pupitre panicked and he began screaming too.

"He's right! Everybody stop screaming!" Satine commanded, but nobody paid her any heed either. "Ugh."

"It's okay, Satine. If it makes you feel any better, I'm glad to be dying with you," Christian assured, sitting next to her.

"That really doesn't make me feel any better but thanks," she muttered. No, she didn't mutter, she SAID. And then she smiled. And then Christian smiled. And for a few seconds, there was a romantic atmosphere about them. Up until—

"Okay, stop!" Dukey interrupted, his voice causing the floating cartoony hearts to pop and the angelic music to wind down. "Janitor, get your paws off my bitch."

"Ex-CUSE me?!" Satine demanded, jumping up. "I am no one's bitch!"

"Oh, beg your pardon. Get your paws off my WHORE."

Satine snarled and lunged at Dukey, proceeding to beat the crap out of him.

Zidler stopped running around screaming as he was hit with an epiphany. He reached up and pulled the annoying little epiphany off his face and threw it down. Then he had a brilliant idea.

"What if we did a school play?" he asked the crowd of screaming people.

Satine stopped with her fist frozen over her head as she looked at her father.

"Um…what?" she asked.

"Yeah, what?" asked everybody else. Except for Kronk who was dead.

"Well, since Satine is good with poetry, she can write the school play we can all perform it in front of the entire student body! Won't that be a good way to convince your great uncle to give her a scholarship?"

"Uhhh…sure!"

"And then we can act in it!" Toulouse squealed, jumping on the back of Jerry.

"AHHH! NEVER TOUCH ME!!!" he screamed as he threw Toulouse down on top of Kronk, making a loud squishy noise.

"Yeah, doesn't that sound nifty?!" Zidler asked Pupitre, who hadn't yet commented on it.

"Just as long as I be the spiffy hero."

"Fine, fine. How about you, Greg? Does this sound like an idea to die for?"

"…I wouldn't DIE for it…"

Jerry perked up. "DIE?! DIIIIIE??!!! WE'RE ALL—"

"Excuse me." Carolyn appeared in the doorway, glowering at her brother. "I have been waiting for you for half an hour. And you just LEAVE me out—"

"FREEEEEEEDOM!!!" Jerry screamed as he bombed through the group of people and flew out the door past Carolyn.

"Riiiight…so, Christian, what do you have to say for yourself?"

"…How did you know I was in here?"

"I'm your sister, dipshit. I know things. Anyways, let's go before Dad thinks we died or something."

"Wait, wait, wait, wait, she's your SISTER?" asked Dukey, trying to figure out what was going on.

"And you're name's Christian? Hmm, you look more like an Obi Wan to me," Zidler pondered.

"I didn't know janitors had sisters," Dukey said, ever so snootily.

"Whatever. Let's go, fag," Carolyn said, walking out.

"DOOOOOOR!!!" Greg screamed as he dove to catch it just in time.

Everybody ran outside the portable to breathe the fresh air except for Zidler and Dukey who decided to stay behind and talk.

And, of course, Kronk because he was dead.

"So, Mr. Simplot, do we have an accord?" Steve Zidler asked, holding out his hand acting so much like Johnny in the pirate movie.

Pirates, matey! Arg!

"Agreed," Dukey grinned, shaking his paw.

"Agreed," Zidler confirmed.

All the readers read those last few sentences in disgust and blew raspberries while giving GollumRox a thumbs-down for her stupid reference.

§

So! How did you guys like that? Crickets chirp …You hated it, didn't you?


	5. Meet Nothing in Particular!

Sorry I took so long. I forgot to care. Plus I was grounded and swamped with schoolwork… (shifty eyes, shifty eyes)

I'm thinking of changing this because I really don't like where it's going. I didn't mean for it to be this long. I only wanted it to be about five or six chapters but I'm just babbling randomly. So if it gets deleted, that means it's going under construction. Ooo. Or I might just kill some chapters and leave one or two. Anyways, for the time being, I'll just stick with this.

Oh yeah, responses. I'll stick them at the end this time. Try something new and exciting. Yey…

I disclaim to the point of my entrails leaking out of my ears.

…What?

§

"How could you just leave me out there when you promised to meet me? You had me worried sick! No, literally, I was worried to the point of all that creamed corn I ate for lunch coming back up…"

As Carolyn rambled off on a random complaining spree, Christian stared off into the distance and envisioned Satine and himself hand in hand, arms around each other's waists, twirling around and around on an endless sky ballroom where the stars sparkled around th—

"Christian!"

"WHAAAAAAT?!" The vision exploded and shards of bone and cloth were flown over the clouds.

Well, that was graphic.

The voice wasn't Carolyn's though. No. It was SATINE'S!

"Oh, well, that makes up for it," Christian decided as she hurried over to him.

"Meh?" both Carolyn and Satine asked.

"What is it?"

"I just wanted to, um…well, I wanted to…" Satine avoided eye contact as she kicked the dirt with her toe. "Well, there's something I wanted you to, um…you see, I'm not that much of—"

"SPIT IT OUT!!!" yelled the eight teachers that were supposed to be eavesdropping in the portable next to them.

"I really liked your poem thingy," Satine said finally.

"Aw, boo! I thought she was going to confess she was having an affair!" Mr. Harm groaned.

"Will you guys butt out?!" Satine yelled to the portable.

A few shuffles were heard and then silence. Still they migrated over to the other side of the lot.

"Dammit, it sounds like they moved," Mr. Tucker said with his ear to the air vent.

"Is that all you wanted?" Christian asked.

"Well, no. Actually, I was wondering if you'd…if you'd like to…" she trailed off as she noticed the eight teachers scurrying along the outside of the portable and quickly hiding behind a dying tree no thicker than a dry-erase marker.

Christian and Carolyn turned to see them pretending they were invisible, hiding their faces with their hands and pressing themselves flat against the side of the portable as if they were camouflaged.

"Um…well, I uh," Satine found it incredibly hard to say her sentence which was hard enough to say without being distracted by a bunch of snooping teachers. So this way, it was twice as hard. "Duh…"

Carolyn glanced at her watch and gestured to Christian she would be waiting by the building and took off.

"See uh, I was wondering if…if you'd like to write the little, um, school play for me." She opened her lips to show her teeth, which was a sad attempt to smile.

_He'll say no_ she thought.

"No, he won't," she hissed back.

Christian raised his eyebrows.

_You know he won't do it. He doesn't want to. He has better things to do._

"Oh yeah? Like what?" Satine demanded, putting her hands on her hips.

_A lot of stuff, I'm sure._

"Well, what do you know? Have you spent more than 3 minutes with the guy?"

Christian was tempted to run off and join Carolyn.

_I've spent the same amount of time with him as you have._

"So we know the same stuff then! HA! Gotcha! You don't know any more than me! Can't deny that, can you?"

_…_

"That's what I thought…or that's what YOU thought, I gu—will you guys knock it off!"

A very frightened and confused Christian turned around to see the teachers frozen in mid-spider monkey walk.

"Er…sorry," they each muttered, wandering off in different directions.

"Yeah," Christian said finally, pretending nothing had occurred between now and the time she asked the question.

"Oh you ARE denying it?" Satine asked the air in front of her.

Christian's jaw dropped.

"Oh wait…did YOU say that? Sorry, what did you say?"

"I said yeah, I'll do it. I'll write the play for you."

"You WILL? I mean, you really want to?"

"Sure."

"Ha HA!!! What did I tell you?! WHAT did I TELL you?!" Satine demanded pointing a finger at nothing.

"So um…I'll see you tomorrow?" Christian guessed, starting to walk off.

"Wait, do you need a ride home?" Satine called after him.

Derr. He didn't even think about how he'd get home. He surely missed the bus and he definitely wasn't walking. One reason was because he'd only lived in town for 9 days and would get lost just turning the corner. The other was he and Carolyn were sitting ducks for kidnappers, rapists and mormon missionaries.

He shuddered at the thought.

"Yeah, sure," Christian said. "Just let me get my sister."

He pivoted around and went to Carolyn who had gotten bored and decided to make a hut out of grass.

Satine put on a satisfactory smile.

_Well, he is cute_ she thought.

"Shut up! Quit hitting on him!" she grumbled.

"Oh, bacon bit! It's time to gooooo!" Steve, not Harold, Zidler called out as he approached her.

"Oh, we're taking Christian home, Dad."

"But doesn't he have his own car?" he asked, puzzled.

No, not puzzle. PUZZLED. As in confused!

"Obviously not."

"Oh, these poor underpaid janitors," he sighed, shaking his head sadly. "Can't even afford their own transportation. Oh well! Just be glad YOU'RE not a janitor, honey bunches of oats."

He slung an arm around her neck and walked down the lot with her.

As soon as they were gone, eight heads popped out from behind the portable they were just at.

"He looked a little young to be a janitor," Ms. Boester mused.

"That's because he's NOT a janitor," Mrs. Thomas snapped. "He's a student!"

"Really?" the remaining seven teachers asked in unison.

"Yes! We must find a way to expose him!" Mrs. Thomas schemed. Suddenly her dentures fell out of her mouth for no particular reason. "Dahmet."

"Okay, sounds fun," Mrs. Fearey agreed. "I mean, it's not like we have anything better to do. Half our students don't even do their homework."

"Yah!" they all agreed and scurried back into the portable to form an evil plot.

Except for Mrs. Thomas who was now on her hands and knees searching for her dentures without which she couldn't see and proceeded to slam into various objects.

The car was extremely awkward.

Principal Zidler, whose name was Steve and not Harold, sat in the driver's seat, driving.

"Noooo, surely he wasn't DRIVING!" commented one of GollumRox's sarcastic readers.

"Shut up, Frotu," the author responded, backhanding her.

Anyways, Zidler was driving, Satine sat shotgun while Christian and Carolyn were crammed in the back along with heaps of boxes.

"Sorry about the lack of space back there, guys," he apologized. "I just like to collect boxes. Hope you don't mind."

"Nope," they lied.

Upon her father saying "hope you don't mind", the poem Christian wrote popped into Satine's head and immediately she felt the urge to turn around and gaze at him.

So she did.

"What?" he awkwardly asked after a few minutes of her just randomly staring at him.

"…Hi," she blurted out and turned around.

"Kay…" Christian muttered under his breath right when they passed the sports store.

THE SPORTS STORE!!!

Christian's brain hit the rewind button and he was thrown into a flashback.

"Darn. Now the Bucks rug is scorched. We have to get a new one today so Dad won't notice," Christian sighed.

"Could you stop here really fast?!" Christian half screamed.

This lead to Zidler slamming on the brakes and all the boxes in the back getting thrown up to the front.

"It'll only be a few minutes," Christian called back as he pulled Carolyn out of the car and they both ran down the sidewalk and into the sports store.

"Poor guy," Zidler said. "Can't resist a drink to find solace in his pathetic life."

"What the hell is your problem?!" Carolyn demanded, trying to wrench herself from Christian's grip on her arm.

"We need to get that Bucks/Packers rug before Dad notices we ruined it," Christian explained, pushing open the door and immediately getting evil glares thrown his direction by the drunks and Packer fanatics that had nothing better to do than live in the store.

People just loved to glare at him, huh?

"Well, do you have any money on you?" Carolyn asked in a low voice.

Christian stopped.

Zidler had his copy of Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them open on the steering wheel while Satine sat reclined in her seat with her feet crossed at the ankles propped up on the dashboard. Her eyes were fixed on the ceiling as she thought about Christian.

He was indeed a strange one, but he was such a charmer. Guys like Christian were hard to come by especially in Milwaukee. I mean, when was the last time she met someone who was able to think of such lovely poetry while locked up in a closet filled with dead people in complete darkness all in a matter of a few seconds?

He surely wasn't just any average Joe. No, he was something special and unique.

And those eyes, my God! They were like shimmering pools of a colorless gem, reflecting his in—

GollumRox was slapped by her muse, who was actually quite flattered with her description, and resumed typing in Satine's point of view.

Satine let out a dreamy sigh. She made a mental note to herself to see him more often so she'd get to know him better. She had—

"I'm sorry to ask you this but do you have any money?" Christian asked suddenly appearing in the window.

"GAAAAAH!!!" Satine and Zidler responded.

"Sorry! Sorry, did I startle you?"

"Oh, no you didn't startle us at ALL," Zidler grumbled, letting his bad side get to him. "I meeeeean, how much do you want?"

"You better just give me the whole thing," Christian said, taking the wallet and running off with it.

"Well, that was a stupid thing to do," he realized three seconds later. "I just gave my entire wallet to a janitor who took it and ran."

"He's not a janitor, Daddy," Satine admitted, keeping her eyes on the floor of the car.

"Oh, Satine, it's okay. If you want to see a councilor about it, we can do that, but don't be in denial." He patted her on the shoulder.

Christian slapped the mat on the counter and impatiently started to drum his fingernails on his leg.

"This is all I'll be buying," he hastily told the cashier.

"Is this all you'll be buying?" the cashier asked.

The little bell over the door tinkled as the door to the shop swung open. The paranoid Christian and Carolyn ducked behind the counter until they heard a female voice greeting the bartender.

"Phew. Thought it was Dad," Carolyn sighed.

"Yeah…"

"Kids? Where'd you go?" the cashier called.

Christian leapt up, grabbed the rug and ran off with it while Carolyn fumbled for a $20 bill and placed it on the counter before running after her brother.

The two sprinted out of the store and down the sidewalk towards the car. Christian ripped open the door and held it open for Carolyn as she dove in headfirst before stuffing the rug inside and jumping in.

"Go, go, go!" Christian yelled before he even had a chance to close the door.

Zidler threw the car in drive and floored it, the tires screeching and burning rubber on the pavement as they sped off.

"So what'd you steal?" he asked, glancing in the rearview mirror at them. "A rug? Jeez. You guys have no taste."

"You want this back or not?" Carolyn threatened, holding up the wallet.

Satine reached back and yanked the wallet from her hand.

"What time does Dad get home, Carolyn?" Christian asked, looking at his watch.

"Quarter to four," she said. "Why? What time is it now?"

"It's 3:41. Could you drive a little faster, please?"

"Now, now, I'm going to be a good law-abiding citizen and go the speed limit. You just relax, Mr. Janitor."

"Janitor?" Carolyn asked, cocking an eyebrow. "Oh, right, janitor," she corrected herself picking up on the situation. "Of course you're a janitor, Christian. I completely forgot. Yup, you sure are a janitor. One of the best janitors out th—"

Christian smacked her in the arm with the back of his hand to shut her up.

"Speaking of law-abiding citizens going the speed limit, when are you going to take driver's ed, wildberry Pop-tart?" Zidler asked.

"I was thinking of taking it next session," she replied.

"Hey, so was I," Christian said. "How do you sign up?"

"It's a very long and difficult process involving the DMV an—"

"TURN LEFT!!!" Carolyn and Christian shouted suddenly, causing Zidler to jerk the wheel and send the car swerving into the next street.

"Oh my God! I hit a squirrel! I'm…so…STUPID, STUPID, STUPID, STU—"

"Dad," Satine said. "Stop hitting your head on the steering wheel. It was already dead."

"Oh. Well, in that case, I'm GLAD I hit it! In your face, squirrel! BUAH HA HA!"

Satine's face flushed with humil—

"TURN RIGHT!!" they shouted again, this time Zidler narrowly missed a parked car and ran over a beach ball, feeling it explode from underneath the tire.

"My ball! Waaaaah!" responded the kids who had to jump out of the way.

"Sorry, kids!" Zidler shouted out the window.

"Our house is up here on the right," Christian said calmly.

"THAT'S your house?!" Satine asked, being a complete bitch about it as she saw the rundown building looking as if it was crapped out by God and had a rough landing as it fell from the sky.

"Satine, don't be a complete bitch about it," Zidler scolded, slapping her across the face. "It's not their fault they're poor, it's their father's."

Neither Christian nor Carolyn felt offended because they weren't paying any attention. They were only concerned about Billy Bob's car being parked in the driveway.

Then they remembered Billy Bob didn't even HAVE a car.

So basically, there was no possible way they could tell whether he was home or not.

Crap.

"It's 3:45 now so maybe he's running late," Christian reassured his sister.

"Yeah, hopefully," she agreed as they opened their doors and jumped out.

They didn't even notice the car was still moving.

"Ooph! Gow!" they said as they landed on the pavement. Christian had the advantage of cushioning himself with the rug, but it didn't help much.

"Ooo, are you guys all right?" Zidler called back after he stopped the car.

"Fine, fine," Carolyn yelled back as she helped Christian up and they ran to the house. Christian turned to wave thank you and good-bye to them but slammed into the mailbox.

"Ouch," Zidler cringed. "I tell you, these janitors are so uncoordinated sometimes."

Satine didn't answer. She just smiled stupidly and stared after Christian, her eyes filled with adoration. He was such a cutie even if he was a total klutz.

"Well, time to head home," Zidler shrugged and shifted to reverse.

The car drove backwards for about 20 feet until it stopped in front of the big spiffy second-story house with wide windows and lamps and a lovely little garden complete with little garden gnomes and a shrubbery with a little path running through the middle.

"Holy crap, they were living right next to us this entire time?!" Christian demanded himself.

"Come ON!" Carolyn urged, heaving him up. "We have to make sure he's in there first."

They creaked open the door and peeped inside.

"Coast is clear, let's go," Carolyn whispered. They snuck across the floor towards the kitchen. Unfortunately, they had to cross the living room to get to the kitchen and just their luck…

"Ah God! Don't do it!" Billy Bob sobbed from the couch as he watched a movie.

"I am bringing that Barbara bitch down or my name isn't Herman P. Spunklemyer!" Catcher screamed as he slammed his fist down on his desk.

"But, Catcher," his boss, Mr. Peabody said timidly, "your name ISN'T Herman P. Spunklemyer…"

Catcher blinked a few times. "Oh yeah."

"Ahhh God!" Billy Bob blubbered, blowing his nose into a Kleenex.

"Dad?" Carolyn approached her father slowly. "Are you okay?"

"This movie…is so…emotional," he said, his voice with a tremor. "I just—I can't get over how much it…"

"Dad. This is supposed to be a comedy," Carolyn said.

Billy Bob paused, grabbed the DVD box and read it over.

"Oh. Well, in that case, this movie SUCKS!" With that, he turned off the TV and chucked the box across the room. He took a deep breath and calmly folded his hands in his lap. "Soooo, how was school?"

"Fine."

"Did you make lots of new friends?"

"Yeah."

"And do you like your teachers?"

"Yeah."

Christian rolled his eyes and nervously wiped the beads of sweat off his forehead as he hid behind the wall. Hurry UP, Carolyn. Distract him.

"No problems with your locker or anything?"

"No."

"Did you get lost and start crying?"

"No."

"Were there a bunch of sophomore girls standing in the hall and making fun of the way you were dressed?

"No."

"Did you get your lunch money stolen by a big bad bully named Butch?"

"Carolyn…" Christian snarled only loud enough for his sister to hear.

"Dad, what's that on the wall behind you?" she asked pointing.

"Where?" he muttered as he craned his neck around to look.

Carolyn flapped her hand and Christian rushed in.

"There's nothing there, Carolyn," Billy Bob said, turning back around.

"Eep!" Christian squeaked and backpedaled out of the room, barely making it without Billy Bob seeing.

"Really? Well look again," Carolyn told him. As Billy Bob turned, she beckoned Christian to hurry.

He was only a few steps in but jumped back when Billy Bob whirled around to face his daughter. "I don't see anything. Are you smokin' the good stuff, Carrie? That can make you hallucinate."

"No, Dad, I'm pretty sure there's something there. Take another look." This time, she held his head in place with her hands as he searched the wall. She looked at Christian, cocked her head towards the kitchen and mouthed "Go!"

"Let go of my head, Carolyn," Billy Bob complained as Christian hurried across the floor.

He was halfway there when Billy Bob got free of her hold and turned around.

"Hey, Chr—"

"Ahh! You can't see me!" Christian twittered, bolting out of the room.

"Wait, come back! Tell me about your day at school!" Billy Bob called after him. Before he could stand up and go after him, Carolyn sat on his lap.

"So how was work, Dad?" she asked sweetly.

"Oh, I didn't go."

"You didn't go?!"

"Nope."

"Were you fired?"

"Um, NO! I just didn't feel like going, that's all."

"You didn't go into the kitchen anytime today, did you?"

"I think I did a few times, why?"

"You didn't notice anything different about the Kukoc shrine, did you?"

"Well, I thought I did but I think it was just the painkillers getting to my head."

"What did you notice?" she asked nervously.

"I thought the rug looked different, but then again I was seeing purple raccoons in drag doing a conga line in front of me the entire time as well."

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Christian threw the scorched rug aside and replaced it with the newly bought rug in one swift motion. He correctly aligned it so that it was perfectly parallel with the wall and all that good stuff. He stood up and looked down upon it with a sort of nervous satisfaction.

Until he noticed the price tag.

"Crap," he muttered as he looked around the corner to see that Billy Bob and Carolyn were still talking. The scissors were in the end table next to the couch.

Frustrated and in a complete panic, he searched the kitchen for something to cut it off with. He ripped open the silverware drawer and spotted…

"A spooooon!" he announced triumphantly as he grabbed one and proceeded to saw off the price tag.

Surprisingly enough it worked.

He crumpled up the tag and tossed it in the garbage.

Now what to do with the old rug?

"…And the penguin says 'What do I look like, a typewriter?!'"

Billy Bob sat in silence. Finally, he said, "I don't get it."

"You're not supposed to get it, that's what makes it funny!" Carolyn busted out laughing.

Billy Bob sat in silence some more.

"Heh…don't you think it's funny, Dad?"

"I'm hungry," he announced randomly.

"That's nice. Thanks for sharing."

"I want some food." He began to stand up.

"No!" Carolyn screeched, shoving him back down. "Wanna hear another joke? Okay. What did the fish say when he hit the wall?"

"I've heard that one bef—"

"What did the fish SAY, Dad?!"

"He said 'dam'. Now can I please get something to eat?"

"What did the ocean say to the sea?"

"I'm hungry. Newsflash."

"Nothing, it just waved! Hahahaha! Isn't that funny, Dad?"

"I want a cheeeeeese sandwich," Billy Bob stated, rising from the couch. Carolyn jumped into his path.

"No, Da—"

Billy Bob planted his palm on Carolyn's face, shoved her down on the couch and continued to make his way to the kitchen.

"Come back, Dad. Don't go into the KITCHEN," she hinted at Christian.

Christian's head shot up as he replaced the spoon in the proper drawer and he flew over to where the old rug was and grabbed it from the ground. Billy Bob turned the corner and Christian, without thinking, tossed the rug out of the open window.

"Hi, Dad," he greeted, trying to sound casual.

"Hellooooo. How was school?" Billy Bob asked, digging through the refrigerator.

"Oh, uh..."

"Yeah, I've been there." Billy Bob took a big hunk of cheese out of the fridge and kicked it shut. "So did you get YOUR lunch money stolen by a big bad bully named Butch?"

"Uh huh…" Christian answered numbly, watching out the window as the youngest Cowwe boy found the rug and started licking it.

"Yeah, that happened to me when I started my senior year too. I hated that bully. I hope he died a slow and painful death." Billy Bob looked up from his cheese hunk to see his son gawking out the window. "What are you staring at?"

"That's nice…" muttered Christian as he watched the Cowwe boy attempt to tie it around his neck to make a cape.

"Is there a girl out there?" Billy Bob advanced towards the window. Luckily, Christian felt him coming and quickly closed the blinds.

"What?" he asked innocently as he leaned against the blinds.

"Were you staring at a girl outside?"

"No…"

"Well, there's a REALLY hot girl next door to us."

"…That so?" Christian found this simply disgusting. His dad was, what, 43? And Satine was only 17. At least he assumed his dad was talking about Satine.

"She's got the reddest hair I've ever seen. I think it's dyed."

Yup, he was.

"That's great, Dad. Um, I think I met her."

"Really? Is she hotter in person?"

"Dad! You're, like, married…kinda."

"So? Kathy Lee Gifford's husband is 30 years older than her. And how about that Anna Nicole Smith? I mean, damn! That guy was a PRUNE!"

"Dad, I'm talking about…"

Christian sighed and some cheesy tense family scene music decided to start up. The nerds whipped out their pencils and notepads and prepared to take notes.

"Have you forgotten about Mom?" Christian asked.

Billy Bob took a huge bite of his sandwich and shrugged.

"Nah," he decided with shards of bread and cheese falling out of his open mouth.

"Well, how can you think of other women if Mom is still a big part of your life?"

A piano started playing softly, joining the background music.

"Um, cuz she's dead?" Billy Bob said sardonically. "I don't have to worry about being faithful anymore." He ripped his teeth into his sandwich. "Besides, can't I move on after being widowed for 12 years?"

A violin joined the music.

"I thought love was something that lasts forever," Christian stated. "Once you've loved someone, there shouldn't be anybody else."

A boys' choir began to sing some "Aaah"s.

"I mean, think about it! It doesn't seem fair to her if you're out with other women! You make it seem like she doesn't mean anything to you and never did!"

Then some percussion was added as the music got more intense.

"Do you think it's fair for me and Carolyn to stand there and just WATCH you try to replace our mother with girls half your age?!"

A short drum solo.

"Have you EVER thought of US for once, Dad? Ever?! Did you stop for one second to consider OUR feelings about this? Have YOU lost a mother? Have YOU been through the same thing? You don't know what it's like!"

The music reached a climax.

"YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE!!!"

And ended.

The Academy Award judges rolled their eyes and crossed Christian Iggins Timperline off their list of Best Actor Nominees for 2004.

"Christian…" Billy Bob said after an awkward silence. "Why are you making such a big deal about this? I just said she was hot."

Christian's chest heaved with his panting. He shrugged.

"Felt like doing a profound monologue."

"Well, good for you!" Billy Bob reached over and ruffled Christian's hair a bit. "Say, you should try out for a part in that school play you're supposed to be writing in secret." He stuffed the rest of his sandwich in his mouth.

"What?" Christian's head shot up to look at his dad. "How did you know about that?"

"Oh…was I not supposed to know about that yet? Whoops. I mean, I don't know anything about a school play. Nothing. I don't even know what I said. So, you wanna go paintballing tonight?"

"Nah, I can't. I gotta write the school play."

"Ooo, a school play, eh? Are you gonna be a playwright?"

"Sure."

"You know, I wrote MY school play back in senior year. It was a complete success."

"Really?"

"No. I just wanted to say that to sound cool. I don't remember what I did senior year but from what I recall, it wasn't much."

"That I do believe."

"Maybe tomorrow night we can go paintballing. Oh, wait, no we can't. We gotta go to that funeral."

"What funeral?"

"Oh, you didn't hear? Our poor neighbor Mrs. Cowwe passed away this morning. Apparently, she was mauled by her dog because she was found with her throat ripped out. Isn't that sad?"

"Not really. I hated her. Whenever Carolyn and I would walk by her house, she would tell her sons to throw beer cans at us and call us Michigan rooster fuckers."

"Well, that's not so bad. At least the cans weren't full."

"They WERE full."

"Oh. Well, she was probably senile. Come on, have a little sympathy. I mean, the woman's dead."

"Do I HAVE to go to the funeral? I really don't want to."

"Why?"

"Because I'll probably snap and burst into vivacious song and dance in celebration during the service. Plus I really did not like her."

"It doesn't matter. It's a nice thing to pay your respects. Besides, funerals are fun! You get to laugh at all the people crying."

"Dad, I remember you at Mom's funeral. It looked like your face was melting."

"Christian, that was 12 years ago," he snapped, trying to shake the memory. "Anywho, you're going to the funeral and you're going to LIKE it."

"Fine…" Christian grumbled.

"Lookit meeeeeee! I'm Superman!" came a child's voice from outside. Curious, Christian and Billy Bob opened the blinds just in time to see the little Cowwe boy leap off the roof of his house with the rug tied around his neck.

He hit the ground with a sickening crack.

Christian clapped a hand over his mouth and turned away.

"Hey, that looks exactly like our rug," noted Billy Bob.

§

Ugh. (Sticks paper bag over head) Responses?

Shirylon: I don't know why but I really liked your comment. I love being sarcastic…I mean, I just HAAAAAATE being sarcaaaaatic. It's absolutely no fun at ALL. I didn't like the Olympics. They killed Conan. Snort. I have problems.

Midnight Proc: "Forky, you're so HOT!" What, what. …I don't know what I'm saying.

Eax: I prefer NOT to talk about my chapter. (Sigh, stew, lament) I tried to watch Case Closed but I don't think I have it here in my craptastic state. Booo. I can't stand watching Nip/Tuck. Surgery makes me squeamish. Yes, go Dr. Christian. Yey!

Spoofy: Corn, corn, corn, corn, corn. Not peas.

Tani: I have already decided to include you in either the Benny and Joon parody or the From Hell parody I'm reconstructing. You shall receive your rewards then. BUAH HAHA! …Ha. ……..You love The Wedding Singer as well? YAAAAAAAY! You're my new best friend! But wait…it's not your favorite anymore? Waaaaahhh! Oh well. Yes, Adam is adorable in that one. Especially his dead animal mullet hair. Blah ha ha! Mmm…no…must…resist…quoting…….film… "You know, it's funny. Some of us will never ever find true love. Like take for instance…me. And I'm pretty sure that guy right there. And that lady with the sideburns. And basically everybody at table nine." "Huh?" "But the worst thing is…that me, fatty, sideburns lady, and the mutants over at table nine…will never ever find a way to better the situation. Because apparently we have absolutely nothing to offer the opposite sex." "Mm hmmm." "You are the worst wedding singer in the world, buddy!" "Sir, one more outburst and I will strangle you with my microphone wire. You understand me? Now let's cut the stupid cake cuz I know the fat guy's gonna have a heart attack if we don't eat again soon. And while we do that here's a little mooood music for ya!" Dammit. Thank you so much for reviewing though. I love getting reviews from famous people. Deehee.

Paige: Adrien's so cool. He almost made me cry in The Village. He was just so heartbreaking. Awww. …No, don't get me started on politics because like the mormons I can go on forever and ever…and ever. I'll just say this: "The other day, John Kerry attacked president Bush by saying that his middle initial stood for 'wrong'. After hearing this, Bush replied, 'My middle initial isn't R.'"

Packers Fan: Please don't bash the president. It's not very nice. "President Bush stated John Kerry was a 'difficult, challenging, and threatening opponent'. That's why he nicknamed Kerry 'math'." "My favorite paper is: Dick Cheney said _The New York Times,_ Rush Limbaugh said _The San Francisco Tribune_, and President Bush said 'construction'." "Everyone loved my speech, but it wasn't enough for them. They kept chanting 'four more years'. I mean, I know I'm good and everything, but I just can't talk that long." Seriously though, dude, Bush is a perfectly good president…FOR ME TO POOP ON!

Fufulupin: Yey.

Karabara: Why do you think Canada is full of sluts? I am no slut. I am a perfect little Catholic virgin. (Shifty eyes, shifty eyes) And I am no guy. Wow, your perception on everything is rather askew. First you think Kerry is an idiot…then you assume everybody in Canada is a slut, then you think I'm a guy. …I'm sure you were going to say something cool. I always say 'I had something cool to say but I forgot' and end up saying something completely stupid. Maybe we have the same syndrome. It's called the George Bush Syndrome. OWWWWWCCCHHHHHH!!! All right, I'm done with the politics stuff. …"Mr. President, that is NOT written in the Bible!" "Yes it is! It's right here on page…12." NOW I'm done. And I accept your apology. Or DO I? Dun dun dun!

Frotu: Uhm... GRIIIIIIIIIIIM!


	6. An Important Message From Ewan & Jude

"What?" demanded GollumRox more furious than confused. "Important message my a—"

She was cut off instantly as Jude shoved her off the chair and replaced her.

"Hello girls and guys…hopefully not guys, but whatever. I am he—"

Jude fell to the floor after Ewan booted him off the chair and took a seat.

"No. _I_ am here to tell you something. I'm proud to announce that I shall be making a television appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno this Tuesday at 11:30 pm Eastern time."

Suddenly Jude's arm reached up, grabbed Ewan's hair and yanked him off the chair. Once Ewan was off, Jude scrambled back up to replace him. "And _I_ will be making a television appearance as well! Be sure to tune in and watch!" he suggested, giving a cheesy thumbs-up.

"You bloody moron," Ewan grumbled as he stood up next to him. "You didn't say when!"

"They'll know," Jude nodded.

"But you need to tell them just in case."

Jude just nodded again.

"Well?"

After a few seconds, Jude squeezed some air through his teeth and said, "I can't remember."

"Jeezum Crowe, how about Late Night with Conan O'Brien Thursday at 12:30 Eastern?" Ewan threw at him with exasperation.

"Actually, it's 12:3_7_," GollumRox corrected, annunciating the '7'.

"Of course you'd know, Forkie," Ewan droned.

"Will you get out of my chair now?"

"Nah. I like it!" Jude grinned, turning the chair in circles.

"And when are you ever going to update?" Ewan prodded.

"Don't prod me, dammit. I'm working on it."

"You're angering your fans."

"What fans?" Jude mocked, still spinning around.

"You guys are stupid. Just go away," GollumRox sighed.

"You're just going to end this stupid pitch without a decent apology to your readers on your lack of creative and frequent updates?" Ewan asked.

"Oh fine." GollumRox then turned to the readers and plastered on a sincere face. "I am deeply regretful for my irresponsibilities as a writer and I beg for your forgiveness. Please do not hate me because of the dictators who run my life and give me no time to do anything at all."

Ewan and Jude looked at each other.

"That sucked," Jude concluded.

"Ah, shut up and watch the rest of Stepmom with me," GollumRox grumbled.

And so the three of them gathered around the TV and watched the sappy ending of Stepmom and laughed at everybody's acting, leaving the once hopeful of an update readers alone at their computers with their hopes crushed and shriveled up.

Except the hopes of those Ewan and Jude fangirls who were waiting desperately for a television appearance by the both of them in the same week.


	7. Meet More Ripoffs!

You guys better feel spiffy. I've been very busy lately and I'm cutting into precious work time just to please you.

Ewan: Oh, what-EVER, Forkie!

Jude: Yeah, let's see your busy this past month. (rolls footage)

Ewan (on old-fashioned black and white film): Forkie, maybe you should update your story.

No! Must…write…BOB!

(Cuts away)

Jude: Er, Forkie?

(stares at the TV)

Jude: Forkie!

Shhh.

Jude: I was just going to ask you when you're going to upd—

SILENCE, EVIL DEMON OF THE DARKNESS!

Jude: Sorry! (runs away)

…Heheheheheheh. The Bear.

(Cuts away)

I swear it's a homeless person.

Ewan: Forkie, all this time you're wasting video taping yourself can be spent updating your story.

Go away. You're in my shot. (Shoves him away) I mean, how can that NOT be a homeless person?

(Cuts away)

Ewan: Forkie! Are you DRUNK?!

Not really.

Ewan: Why in God's name are you watching The OC?!

(Shrugs)

Ewan: You know, you can be updating your story in this allotted time.

… (Pulls lever)

Ewan: (falls through trap door) AHHH!

Jude: (pops up) Ooo, The OC! Have Summer and Seth gotten back together yet?

Who?

(Footage ends)

I would consider that busy.

Jude: Come on. Your cat's shit is busier than that.

You want me to continue this update or not?

Ewan: It won't matter. You will anyways.

…I hate you.

§

I own not.

§

Satine, and her parents, Steve—not Harold—and Pam sat in the living room watching 'Who's Line is it Anyways?' and digging into their Kid Cuisines.

Yes, Kid Cuisines. They were about as poor as the Timperlines…only not THAT bad.

"So, Satine, how was your little get-together with the Simplot guy?" Pam asked during a commercial for Herbal Essences shampoo.

Somewhere far, far, far, far off Haldir squealed in delight at the commercial.

"Well, first it was awkward, then it was weird, then it was violent, then it was stupid, then it was confusing, then it was romantic, then it was stupid again, then it was good."

"…So overall it was…?"

"Good."

"Good!" She nabbed the corn off of her fork, which were the size of pebbles and just as hard. They also tasted like melted plastic.

Satine decided to go on a staring streak and gawk at the wall. Even though the wall was actually very interesting to stare at, all that was roaming around her head was Christian.

She just loved everything about that kid. The way he looked, the way he talked, the way he sprinted, the way he blinked, the way his hair flew as he spun around out, the way his body would lift easily from the ground as she'd hurl him around, the way his eyes had no distinguishable color, and especially the way he'd make up poetry off the top of his head.

Her eyes fluttered and she sighed contently.

Pam and Steve looked over at her. Shrugging, they returned to their dinner to finish their nasty-ass pudding complete with the 9 sprinkles the little penguin on the cover would allow them to have.

Noticing this, Steve growled and grabbed his box.

"I hate this penguin," he muttered angrily. He glowered at the cartoon who smiled stupidly back at him. "He thinks we're not good enough to have more than 9 sprinkles for our pudding."

"Honey, you're overreacting," Pam told him, her eyes on her food. Secretly, she was thinking the exact same thing.

"No I'm not. I'm not overreacting. I think it's time this penguin coughed up what we deserve. We deserve more damn sprinkles!" He gripped the box with both hands and shook it furiously.

"COME ON, PUFFY! GIVE US OUR FRIGGIN' SPRINKLES!!! YOU THINK YOU'RE BETTER THAN US?! HUH?! DO YA?!"

Pam, despite similar feelings, rolled her eyes and turned her gaze to the TV.

Satine didn't even notice her father going whacko on the TV dinner box; her train of thought was on a one-way trip to Christianland and she was planning on staying there for a looooong time.

§§§

Christian lay on the bed, one arm draped lazily over his stomach, the other under his pillow as his eyes explored the ceiling, his face expressionless.

"How many did you write?" he asked, not moving.

GollumRox pondered a bit as she took a long drag from her cigarette. After she blew out the smoke and created a cloud above both of them, she came up with her well thought-out answer.

"Four."

"Really?" Christian rolled his head to look at her.

She nodded.

"One in which I was alone in my car while I was supposed to be snowboarding with my dad and brother. It was very cold."

Christian raised his eyebrows, impressed.

"I don't think I've ever had anyone write four poems about me."

"Well, that just shows how much you're really appreciated," she said, the cigarette in her fingers hovering over her mouth. "These people say they love you so much, but do they take time out of their lives to show it?" She scoffed and replaced her cigarette.

"It's kind of ironic since I'm the big fancy poet," Christian mused. "Now am I supposed to write a parody about your life story or something?"

GollumRox let out a short, sardonic laugh. "That would be like making fun of a clown."

The two lay side by side in silence some more, with only the quiet exhales of GollumRox audible as she filled the room with second-hand smoke.

"Not if the clown was sincere," Christian said finally.

She looked over at him and searched his face. Then she gave him a skeptical smile.

"Sure."

Christian, in return, reached over, took her cigarette into his own hand and placed it between his lips as he took a long drag. He turned away and blew the smoke into the air above him.

"You know," he said, "it's too bad this is just a dream."

"GOD DAMMIT!!!" GollumRox yelled as the bed she was lying in suddenly turned into her writer's chair and her body became fully clothed again.

"That'll teach you to fall asleep on the job," Ewan taunted, doing a random happy dance in the middle of the room.

Mostly out of disappointment, she leaped across the room, pummeled Ewan, grabbed his neck and shook him back and forth until he got blue in the face. Then, lifting him by his hair and boxers, pitched him out of the room, after which he later had an inconvenient encounter with the stairs and was sent tumbling two stories only to slam head-on into her vicious dog and immediately getting severely mauled.

GollumRox grinned and gave a short nod of satisfaction, still feeling extremely bummed about her fantasy being, in fact, a fantasy and resumed writing her extremely random story.

§§§

After witnessing the death of the demonic neighbor kid that Christian had contributed to, he found it very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very difficult to concentrate on his writing. His mind was set on everything except the blank sheet of paper and pencil in his hand.

Christian let his pencil drop from his fingers as he sighed and faced the window longingly.

Coincidentally and ever so conveniently, Christian's window was facing Satine's house and also coincidentally and ever so conveniently, he had a great view into her bedroom as the windows were facing each other. AND coincidentally and ever so conveniently, both windows were open.

Oooooo!

But coincidentally and ever so inconveniently, Satine wasn't in the room.

So after deleting four paragraphs of Christian's wanting to meet Satine again and his frustration over not being able to write the play, GollumRox finally stated that Christian returned to staring at his blank paper, unable to crap out any writing for his play he hadn't thought about.

The readers were greatly disappointed at her lack of trying, but they should've felt lucky they were even getting that much.

Anyways…

§§§

Satine snapped out of her staring streak at 9:30. This was usually her bedtime, but she couldn't possibly sleep on a night like this.

Nope. Way too much was on her mind.

She just couldn't get that Christian kid out of her head. To her he was just this perfect guy that was probably the last perfect guy on earth. There was just something about him that she couldn't shake. He was just an all around perfect guy.

In fact, her brain was so chock-full of loving thoughts of Christian that her hormones exploded and she broke out into song.

"_I follow the night, can't stand the light…"_

"Hurhur. Satine's a bat," commented another ignorant reader.

"Shut UP!" GollumRox growled, turning to Spoofmaster and kicking her in the shin.

"_When will I begin to live again?"_

She leaped into her room.

Unfortunately, she forgot the door was closed and had a rough meeting with it.

After she got up from the floor and rubbed her smashed nose, she opened the door and continued singing.

"_One day I'll fly away, leave all this to yesterday…"_

_§§§_

Christian's head shot up and he look—

"EET'S THE BIG FISH SONG!!!" GollumRox squealed turning up her radio full blast.

Her confused readers read that last part over a few times and still didn't understand its significance. So, for the next 2 minutes, Forkie sat in her chair and listened to the Big Fish song until it was over. Then she continued.

—ed around the room to figure out where that beautiful singing voice was coming from. Although he should've automatically known it was Satine, he still felt the need to search the room before standing up and rushing to the window to see Satine twirling around in her room.

Ah, so it's her.

He grinned.

§§§

"_Why live life from dreeeeeam to dreeeeeam And dread the day when dreeeeeeaming ends?"_

Suddenly, she stopped and decided she was bored of that song. So she made an attempt to make her voice higher-pitched while tacking on a Jamaican/British accent to sound somewhat like Sting. It was more sad than funny.

"_Ow! Just a castaway and I am lost at sea-oh And on some lonely day, no one here but me-oh! My loneliness any man could pay Rescue me before I fall into dismay I'll send an SOS to the world, I'll send an SOS to the world I hope that someone gets my, I hope that someone gets my, I hope that someone gets my message in a bottle, yeah! Message in a bottle, yeah!"_

_§§§_

Christian drooled as he watched her.

§§§

_"A year has passed since I wrote my note I should have known this right from the start Only hope can keep me together Love can mend your life but love can break your heart!"_

She balled her fists and held them out at arms length by her waist as she kicked out her legs to her words.

"_I'll send an SOS to the world, I'll send an SOS to the world I hope that someone gets my, I hope that someone gets my, I hope that someone gets my Message in a bottle, ye-yah! Message in a bottle, woo!"_

Now, she decided it was a good time to start jumping, turning 360 degrees in midair and playing some hardcore air guitar.

§§§

Although he wasn't finding this sexy, Christian was thoroughly enjoying her little dance moves that weren't even worthy of an insane asylum escapee. He chuckled and propped an elbow on the windowsill totally forgetting there was a potted plant innocently sitting there.

§§§

As soon as Satine landed on the floor and was ready to leap into the air again, she heard the crashing of a potted plant right outside her window followed by the dying scream of a cat and a familiar voice hissing "Ah, shit!"

She whirled around to face the window only to lock eyes with—

"Christian!" she gasped and smacked into her bed, sending her falling face forward into the sheets.

Graceful.

"Sorry!" he whispered back. "I was just stalking y—I mean, I was um…"

"No! Bad Forkie!" Ewan scolded slapping GollumRox in the back of the head.

"Ow! What?!" she cried, gripping her hair in defense.

"Derr! You already used that joke in your parody!"

"So?"

"So you can't use the same joke twice! What, were you raised in a barn or something?"

He punched her in the shoulder.

They both had forgotten it was sunburned and immediately Ewan was tackled and getting his head smashed repeatedly against the dresser.

As this was happening, GollumRox's immature younger brother wandered into the room and sat at the computer.

i saw u and i wnated 2 ask if u wantted 2 babysit picachu 4 me! christen siad 2 staine when he picked pu picachu and she said yes so they agred and picachu said pika! and they watched pokemon togethre. they relly licked picachu becauz he was round and chubby and cute like the pokemon all and it was fnu 2 have him at the hou—

Suddenly his sister got a hold of his hair and yanked him off the chair. GollumRox sat back down, ignoring Ewan's painful moans from across the room.

"Well…I heard you and I wanted to talk to you and…stuff." Christian put on a sweet smile, hoping to make her completely forget everything that just happened.

It worked.

"Oh, hi, Christian," Satine said, waving to him. "How are you?"

"Well, I'm kinda stressed out about this play I have to write," he admitted. "I can't think of anything to put down."

"Eh, just make some crap up. I'm sure it'll be good."

They stood in silence for a bit.

A very awkward silence.

"Well, see ya," she said finally, reaching for the pull cord to close the blinds.

"Hey, wait. Maybe you can help me a bit. I kinda need a muse."

"I suck."

"It doesn't matter."

"Fine. What do you need help with?"

"Well, for starters, I can't think of a good plot."

Satine tapped her chin as she thought a bit. "Well, when I'm in that situation, I always go with one of two options: plagiarize something good or rip off something slightly good."

"I could base it off of a published work," Christian mused to himself.

"Yeah, like a movie or something," she added.

"What's your favorite movie?"

This one made Satine think a bit. Of course her all time favorite movie ever was Kangaroo Jack but she never admitted that to anybody. Mostly because no one would take her seriously when she'd say how the visionary feast-for-the-eyes special affects and Oscar-worthy acting blew her away into speechless…ness.

So she decided to lie.

"The Wedding Singer!" she blurted out randomly when her eyes, that had been shifting around nervously, landed on a picture of mutilated road-kill which reminded her of Adam Sandler's horrifying mullet. "Yeah, The Wedding Singer."

"You're kidding me," Christian said sounding rather surprised. "That's MY favorite movie!"

"…Really?"

"Oh yeah."

"That's my favorite movie too!" GollumRox told the computer screen.

"…" said the computer screen.

"My favorite movie is Velvet Goldmine in which I play a bisexual mega mogul who appears naked in various scenes," Ewan proudly stated.

In response, GollumRox backhanded him.

"You're a genius, Satine! I'll write the play based on The Wedding Singer!" Christian squealed. "And I shall call it…_The Wedding Singer_!"

Satine nodded excitedly.

She made a mental note to watch that movie sometime.

"I can see it now." Christian spread his hands over the air in front of him. "The play opens in a famous nightclub with the voice of the town's favorite star vocalist: …"

Satine waited for him to finish with an open mouth. However Christian continued to stare blankly into space, frozen in his position.

"Bob?" Satine guessed.

"Yes!" Christian blurted out, pointing to her. "Bob! Perfect name! Bob…Sandler? Yes, Bob Sandler! He's the main man, everybody wants him at their wedding and only he'll do. He's about to have a wedding of his own to an evil skanky whore named…Dukey…ella. Dukeyella is the woman he's to marry when a beautiful, dazzling, elegant, gorgeous, stunning, HOT, hot, hot waitress by the name of…"

Satine raised an eyebrow and gave him an impressed look. So many adjectives.

"…Gulia Barrymore!" Christian pulled a random name out of the air making Satine raise BOTH eyebrows.

"Gulia Barrymore?"

"Well, I can't make it TOO obvious."

"Oh, and Dukeyella won't give anything away?"

"It's okay. The author is going to change his name in a few pages anyways. We're fine. So anyways, this waitress is about to get married as well! But the guy is a total asshole named TOBAY!"

"Tobay?"

"Toby. I already used a name with "Dukey" in it so I kinda had to be original for a bit. So Toby and Gulia are to be married and Bob's pretty okay with that until he gets stood up at his own wedding!"

"Oh no!" Satine half-exaggerated. This sounded like a good movie.

"So now Bob is skeptical about love and quits his job as a wedding singer when Gulia starts hanging out with him and starts to fall for him. She doesn't tell him though, but at the same time, Bob starts to fall for her as well! Unfortunately, Toby gets in the way of things and makes it difficult for them to have their secret affair. Finally, things just backfire and they go their separate ways, never to see each other again."

"…That's kinda depressing," Satine said after a pause. This movie sucked.

"Well, I changed the ending so that it won't be so predictable for the audience."

"But the ending has to be HAPPY!" she objected, stomping her foot rather immaturely.

"Why?"

"…Because it DOES! All love stories have to have a happy ending!"

"Not always. Romeo and Juliet is said to be the greatest love story ever told and they both die at the end."

"Yeah, well, Romeo and Juliet sucked."

Christian rolled his eyes.

"What's love got to do with it anyways?" Satine pessimistically asked.

"Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne, 1993! Tina Turner rocks my world, baby!" shrieked Mike as he ran through GollumRox's room in his tighty whities.

"What the hell was that?" asked pretty much everybody.

"I'm not quite sure myself," the author said, sinking low in her chair.

"What do you mean by that?" Christian asked her. "Don't you believe in love?"

"No. I believe in harsher punishment for parole violators," she said smugly.

"But love is like oxygen!"

"Heh?"

"Love is a many splendored thing!"

"What?"

"Love lifts us up where we belong!"

"Oh, I've heard of that one."

"All you need is love!"

"Not really."

"YES REALLY!" Christian suddenly had this demonic look in his indistinguishable eyes. Satine stopped arguing. "Besides, what's your beef with this whole love thing? Haven't you ever been in love?"

After he said this, Satine fell into a deep recollection of her middle school days and the story warped into a spiffy flashback…

Thirteen-year-old Satine lay on her bed with a YM magazine open in front of her as she dreamily stared at the page.

"I love you so much," she told the magazine.

The picture of Jack Nicholson had no reply.

"When I grow up, I'm going to marry you."

Again, the picture was at a loss for words.

"Oh, Jack, why must you be so dreamy?"

She held the magazine to her lips and she commenced a make-out session with the picture.

"Ohh! Ohh, Jack!" Satine moaned, rolling around on the bed with the magazine still pressed to her face. She fell onto the floor and continued to kiss the paper.

Pam walked through the open door with Satine's clean socks and stared down at her daughter rolling on the floor, now screaming Mr. Nicholson's name.

She cautiously placed the socks down and hurried out of the room.

"Give it to me, Jack! Give it to meeeee!"

The flashback ended way too abruptly and Satine's head felt like it slammed on the brakes and she fell forward in a daze.

Christian glanced at his watch.

"No," Satine insisted, scrambling back up and fixing her hair. "Never been in love at all."

"That's so SAD!" Christian whined. "Well, I haven't been in love either so I don't know what I'm whining about."

"Love is stupid."

Christian let out a hard gasp and started choking on air.

_Heh heh, loser,_ she thought.

"Shut up," she snarled back.

"What do you MEAN love is stupid?!" Christian demanded when he finished his coughing spell. "Love is like oxygen! Love is a many—"

"You already said that."

"Oh. Sorry. Well, then, I guess it's time for me to sing."

With that, he placed his little alarm clock/FM radio on the windowsill and turned it on.

"_I was made for loving you, baby, you were made for loving me!"_ screamed KISS.

Christian joined, surprisingly singing way better than Mr. Simmons and his three minions. _"And I can't get enough of you, baby, you can't get enough of me!"_

God, he had a great voice.

Ewan grinned haughtily.

Since he didn't know the rest of the song, Christian stopped singing and just let the radio keep playing.

Satine wasn't going down with a fight so she retrieved HER alarm clock/FM radio and turned it on.

"_Love stinks! Yeah, yeah!"_ she sang for the second time in one day. "_Love STINKS! Yeah, yeah!"_

He challenged her with a new song on the next station.

_"In the naaaaaaaaame of love! One night in the name of love! In the naaaaaaame of love! One night in the name of love!"_ he belted out along with U2.

In retaliation, she turned her radio back on so it blared a new song.

"_Love in an elevator! Lovin' it up when I'm goin' down!"_

She sang along as Aerosmith screeched the line three more times before the song ended and she turned off the radio.

"…What did that have to do with anything?" a perplexed Christian asked.

"Your turn." Satine didn't feel like arguing. Not now.

Christian shrugged and searched the stations until he found the most relevant song.

_"Love lifts us up where we belong!"_ he was nearly screaming the words in that soothing glossy voice of his.

Just then, a strange-looking, extremely old, beady eyed, big-chinned Golden Globe stealer in a military uniform appeared between the windows.

"_Where eeeeeeeaaaagles fly on a moooountain high!"_ Richard Gere sang in an incredibly off-key tone. He commenced a Russian can-can dance when an annoyed Satine threw a hair dryer at his head and knocked him unconscious.

A stray Doberman finished the job by dragging Mr. Gere off by his ankle down the street to bury him under his doghouse.

After staring after him for a spell, Satine retaliated by singing along to the song. "_Love makes us act like we have gas! Throw our lives away for one crappy day!"_

Bloo. Take that.

An impressed, and still somewhat shocked from the Richard Gere incident, Christian quickly changed stations and cranked up the volume upon finding the perfect David Bowie song.

"_We could be heroes just for one day!"_ He threw up his arms as he vocalized.

Satine played along.

"_You, you will be mean."_

_"No, I won't,"_ Christian one-third sang, one-third said, one-third screamed.

_"And I…I'll drink all the time."_

She paused for a bit and wondered what that line had to do with anything.

_"We should be loooooooovaaaaaaaahs!"_ He had sang this line so loud that a few shingles on the roof fell to the ground and the windows rattled.

"_We can't do that,"_ Satine sang, wiggling a finger in her ringing ear.

"_We should b—"_

"Not so loud this time!" she quickly hissed at him.

"_Lovahs," _he whispered before continuing in a normal voice. "_And that's a fact."_

_"Though nothing would keep us togethah!"_ she sang back, leaning out the window passionately.

_"We could steal time…"_

_"Just for one day!"_ Satine joined in.

Christian grinned winningly

Yas!

_"We could be heroes forever and ever!"_ they sang in perfect harmony. Awww. "_We could be heroes forever and ever! We could be heroes!"_

By this time, GollumRox had toppled backwards out of her chair and gone into a seizure.

So she wasn't there to stop Whitney Houston from sliding in next to Christian.

"_And IIIIIIIIII—"_

Christian punched her out…yes, just like Mad TV.

"_…will always love yoooooooou!"_

Satine almost melted into a puddle of flesh-colored goo from his perfect voice.

"_IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII can't help loving you!"_ she continued.

"_How wonderful life is now you're in the world,"_ they both finished.

Silence followed.

A very long silence.

"That's it? That's the whole…that's all? It's over?" Satine asked.

Suddenly, she realized she was still passionately leaning out the window, but a little too far and she toppled out.

Luckily, she was only on the first floor so it was all good.

"I'm okaaaaay!" she yelled up to Christian from the bushes where her legs were sticking out.

He didn't believe her and he hopped out of his window to assist her.

Upon heaving her up to her feet, their eyes met and the same cheesy angel music played. They just couldn't let go of each other.

Two minutes passed.

Satine began to drool.

Three minutes passed.

"Um…maybe we should…stop," Christian meekly suggested, though he really didn't mind standing there like an idiot staring at her.

Satine said nothing.

Four minutes passed.

"Did you say something?" she dumbly asked.

"What?" he slurred.

After four and a half minutes, they decided to take advantage of the moment and move in a kiss.

For a first timer, Christian wasn't too bad. Practicing with Carolyn really paid off. As Satine kissed back, she wrapped her arms around his neck and the first thing to enter her brain was the thought of Peeps.

Wow, she really wanted some Peeps.

Peeps were so good.

She loved Peeps.

They were cute too.

Those soft, squishy snacks.

Her mind was bombarded with little marshmallow chicks and bunnies as they danced around a mountain of chocolate chips, singing the universal song of yummy Easter treats.

Suddenly, a huge waterfall of chocolate poured over them all sending some of them cascading away in a large brown tidal wave.

A big floating fiery eyeball descended so that it hovered over the drowned Peeps.

"Beware my wrath, mortals. Ha ha…ha ha."

"Guh!" Satine disgustedly exclaimed as she quickly pulled away from Christian.

"What's wrong? Am I not good enough?" an embarrassed/disappointed Christian asked.

"Huh?"

The two awkwardly stood in silence for a bit before continuing their kiss.

This time, the thought of Peeps stayed out of her head.

Yey.

Across the street was a fence.

One at a time, eight heads popped out from behind it and peered out over the street at the kissing couple.

"This is too good," Mr. Harm muttered happily.

The stray Doberman returned and pulled Mrs. Thomas down as she struggled to stay on the fence, splintering her wrinkly arms on the wood before being dragged off to join Richard Gere.

"I know," Mrs. Boester agreed.

Mr. Wells snapped a picture with his digital camera.

* * *

I apologize…for that.

Frotu the Spifftacular – your butt doesn't hurt as much anymore, huh? Laughs maniacally Shape friends! Yes. I mean, hel-LO?! My slug?! Yah! Yah…uh, yeah. Thû is coming up. Just be patient. God.

Paige – I'm surprised you said it dragged on a bit. In my opinion it's been dragging on since it began. Yes, The Village was goot. …Oh YEAH?! Well, you know what Bush was doing after he was informed the World Trade Center Towers were attacked? He read My Pet Goat! But I should shut up because our suffering is only half over and I need to learn to live with it. looks around Bush sucks.

Shriylon – But I AM perfect… Nope, don't like Bush. Don't like Kerry either but don't like Bush more. But we gotta put up with both him and Jay Leno for four more years. Ye-hey, America.

Midnight Proc - …Shut up.

Fufulupin – Hope you didn't wait too long. And the randomness is thrown in especially for you.

Eax – Just do what I do when I can't stay up each night to watch a show. Record each episode and watch it in the morning. Dee. Snuffy died? I hope not! She's mah budday!

Midnight Proc – The interviews were sexy. Too bad you couldn't watch them. Yes, Conan is a terrible father. But I can think of a worse one. Glares in a northwestern direction Won't mention any names… ANYWAYS! Here's an aphorism I thought was sexy. "Having a good memory isn't intelligence. When it all boils down, common sense is all you need because James Cook discovered Hawaii in 1890 won't help you much in a burning building." Oh yeah. licks finger and touches hip Ssss!

Addicted2Ewan?!! – Falls to the ground and grovels I AM NOT WORTHY! I AM NOT WORTHY! Oh, er, I mean hello. Fancy seeing you here… This isn't my parody by the way but thank you for stooping to my level to humor me. I am quite honored. Yes, romance coming right up. That's what it's all about, yah? Oh yeah. But thanks for making me feel extra spiffy.

Rosemarie-ouhisama – AAAAHHHHHH! Falls back to the ground and grovels NO! I AM NOT WORTHY! I AM NOOOOT WOOOORRRRRTTTTHHHYYYYY!!! I – er, ahem. H-hi… This is quite the surprise. Never before have TWO legendary MR writers reviewed for me! I am quite flattered. sheepish grin Anyways! Ah, fellow democrat, we shall prevail again…some day…hopefully… Well, back to the story. Ah, yes, I'll make sure my ending isn't as depressing as the Baz/Craig ending. Worry not. Wah! You're from Michy? Detroit?! Blaaa! Ever been to Wiscaaansin? hopeful grin AH! I shall carry your requests through ASAP! …Maybe. Definitely Mr. Jolly though. Oh yeah. Bows again

Well, that was eventful. And in the words of my husband: "Gobble gobble gee, gobble gobble gay, have a good turkey day!"

Happy Thanksgiving, America!


	8. An Important Message From Forkie

Fear not, faithful readers! I be still alive!

Jude: Well, it is about TIME!

Ewan: Yeah, jeez, Forkie. Where the hell were you?

Don't ask questions. But you know what I always say: Blame Canada.

Ewan: Thanks a LOT, Canada!

Jude: Yeah, nice going!

Ewan: Oh, they might not understand us. What language do they speak there?

Jude: Uh, duh! Canadian?!

Ewan: Don't they speak French?

Jude: No, Ewan, that would be France.

Ewan: Oh yeah.

As most of you may already have noticed, the name GollumRox has officially been terminated and you shall, until further notice, refer to me as The Spastic Forkie. I mean, come on, people. You were all thinking it. GollumRox was probably the dumbest name ever.

Jude: You got that right!

Ewan: Haha! GollumRox! What a dopey name! I mean…GollumRox!

Jude: It's like "Ooo, I'm so hip and cool because instead of "rocks" I used "rox" because that's so awesome!"

Ewan: "And Gollum is just such a hottie! He not only 'rox' my world, if you know what I mean!" What a LOSER!

Jude: Yeah, I mean, it's like some Pokémon code name!

Ewan: Totally. Whoever came up with that moronic name has to have a brain the size of a peanut. A very small peanut.

Jude: Yeah, what a DUMBASS! Who was it who came up with that by the way?

Ewan: Yeah, we need to know so we can give him a well-deserved wedgie and stuff him in the toilet as a reward for wasting everyone's time with that stupid name.

That was me.

Ewan and Jude: ………………………………Oh.

Yeah.

Jude: …Wow, Forkie! Look who's dumb now!

Ewan: Yeah, you'd always complain about how stupid we were but it looks like the tables have turned! It's YOUR turn to be mocked for your lack of intelligence! Mahaha!

…

Ewan: …Now what?

I'll just sit here and enjoy your titles. Right now I'm at a higher rank than you two and so far I'm enjoying it.

Jude: Mmm…I don't like you being better than me! Me wanna be dumb! (runs into the closet and emerges with a bra over his face) Look at me, I can't see! (Blindly stumbles out of the room and trips and falls down the stairs)

Ewan: Well, _I_ enjoy being the smart one for a change and I'm not going to do anything to mess up my moment.

What if I said you were being stupid for not acting stupid?

Ewan: …Duhhhh…

…

Ewan: …My brain hurts! (licks the electrical socket, gets zapped and falls backwards) There…

Jude: (Busts through the door) COOOOOOL!

Thanks for that. Except now you won't be able to taste anything for a few years.

Papa Smurf: (pops up) Don't try this at home.

Jude: What the f—

Canadian announcer: The Spastic Forkie apologizes for her lack of responsibilities for frequently updating and also apologizes for the graphic display within this rather pointless chapter and requests that you not review for it and to quickly move on to the next chapter she so skillfully put together for your fancy. And that's aboot it.

And don't forget the professional grade engineering!

Canadian announcer: …The world sucks.


	9. Meet Uncle Kip and Aunt Jana!

I apologize both for the delay and that last chapter. Hopefully you'll forgive me with this.

I own naught but a Sauron bookmark.

* * *

While Pam was taking a dump, Steve took advantage of the solitude and decided to sing and dance to a Disturbed song.

"_Yeah, bringin' you another disturbing creation from the mind of one sick animal who can't tell the difference and gets stupefied!"_ He whirled his head around in large circles and kicked his legs around in a random fashion.

He opened his mouth to sing the first verse when the phone rang and totally ruined the moment.

"Dammit. I had a good vibe going," he muttered angrily reaching for the phone. "Fucking telemarketers, I'll damn well show them who the hell they're fucking dealing wi—Hellooooo?" he sang into the phone in his sweet sing-song voice.

"Zidler! It's meeeee!" came the mousy from the other line.

"Who's 'meeeee'?"

"Me, idiot! Dukey Simplot!"

"Oh! Hello, Mr. Simplot! How are you and your donkey today?"

At one of Dukey's fifty-four mansions, Dukey sat upon his purple velvet couch in a red satin robe, lovingly stroking his donkey's back. "She's wonderful. However, I am not."

"Do tell."

"Well, it concerns your daughter. I understand that she is aiming to go to an acting school in Winnebago, correct?"

"Madison."

"Right, right. Anyways, she will require tuition. My suggestion is that, um…well…" Dukey, nervously entwined his fingers in the donkey's mane as he trailed off. "I, um…wanted to…wanted to know if, uh…hehheh…"

"Yes?"

"Well, you see…I was suggesting that Satine could, er…go out with me and…stuff."

He grinned, displaying his crooked, rancid teeth.

The donkey brayed in disgust.

"Go out with Satine?" Steve asked for confirmation. But why?"

"Because…I…want to."

"Well, if it will give her the money for college—"

"It will! I can guarantee that."

Steve thought a bit and shrugged. "Well, besides the fact that Satine is almost an entire 6 inches taller than you, you'd be a really cute couple! I don't see why not, so go on ahead!"

"But there's a catch."

"Oh crap."

"Yes. If Satine doesn't satisfy my lust…" he trailed off to lock eyes with his jealous donkey. "You know I love you," he assured her, covering the phone. "This is business, honey."

"Hello? Dukey? Are you still there?"

"…then I'm going to have to have your school repossessed by my great uncle and have you, your staff and all your students thrown into the streets. Sound spiffy?" Dukey asked, causing his wine glass to crack. The frequency of the sound waves emitted from Dukey's voice saying the word "spiffy" was enough to cause things to break.

Bet you didn't know that, huh?

"Well…I'm not sure if—"

"Of course it sounds spiffy!" A chunk of plaster fell from the ceiling. "Everything sounds spiffy—" A vase tipped over and crashed to the floor. "—when I say it. So are we spiffy—" The grandfather clock fell forward and smashed to pieces. "—with each other?"

"What's all that noise?"

"I SAID are we spiffy—" The chandelier fell behind him. "—with each other? Or will I be forced to take action?" He attempted to snap his fingers but the only sound that came was a soft brush of his two fingers. After trying again, he just decided to ring his little bell.

Dukey's new henchman barged into the room with red eyes, breathing smoke out of his nostrils.

"I hope you heard that," Dukey said into the phone. "That was my new henchman, Omplegork. My parents found him while trekking in the Gobi desert. The zoologist told us he was raised by wild gorillas."

"GURHOOOOOOO!!!!" Omplegork grunted loudly, causing the floor to rumble.

Steve jerked away from the phone. "Yes…impressive, Dukey."

"Oh, that's another thing," Dukey rambled into the phone. "I don't like my name and I want it changed."

"What? You can't!"

"Why not? You got YOUR name changed so why can't I?! This is romanticism and anything can happen!"

"Well, everybody's used to you being called Dukey. If it's changed, they'll be confused, don't you think?"

"No."

Steve sighed. "Well, you're going to have to discus that with the author. It's not my job to change names in the story."

"I don't care! I want my name changed NOW!"

Dukey threw a screaming fit as he whined and kicked various things.

Including Gertrude, his donkey lover.

"EEERRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!" Gertrude screamed in pain as she bucked and ran across the room in a panic. She clumsily collided with Omplegork, sending him smashing through the wall and plummeting seven stories only to impale himself on the pointy spears of the metal fence.

Dukey didn't notice.

"I WANT A NEW NAME!!! I WANT A NEW NAME NOW!!!" he was now screaming to nobody in particular as he continued his tantrum.

The author clasped her hands over her ears and shut her eyes tight.

"Change his name, Forkie!" Ewan yelled over the noise. "Hurry before he kills someone…else!"

"I'm trying!" she yelled back as her brain scanned the evil villains and antagonists database of names.

Finally, she came to the perfect one.

"Now, that's better," sighed Lucifer. "It's a bit satanic but it suits me, don't you think?"

"I think that was the entire point," Steve offered.

"Well, anyways, I'll be coming over to pick up Satine before school in my fancy limousine and I'll be taking her home in my other fancy limousine. Spiffy?"

The lamp bulb exploded and the entire room went dark.

"That can't be possible, Du—er, Lucifer. See, Satine was planning on taking drivers ed next week so sh—"

"Dammit!" cursed Lucifer. "I can't see a damn thing!"

Steve listened as sounds of Lucifer tripping over a rug and falling on his face and the screaming of profanity was heard. "Um…Lucifer?"

"Goddammit!" came his voice when it followed a loud crash and thud.

"Lucifer? Did you hear me?"

A sickening snap was heard followed by a series of thuds.

"Where the hell is the light sw—AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!"

The sound of Lucifer's body landing on top of Omplegork's was heard from a distance and the line died, supposedly from the phone landing in the moat that surrounded his mansion. Or possibly from one of the mutant alligators that devoured it.

"Lucifer? Hello? Hello?" After hearing no response, Steve shrugged and hung up the phone just as Pam came out of the bathroom.

"Who was it?" she asked.

"Eh, telemarketer."

§§§§§§§

Christian, Carolyn, and Billy Bob sat at their breakfast table silently eating their Oriental flavored Top Ramen. Christian's eyes were a striking red from lack of sleep. He had spent all night either kissing Satine or writing the school play, ultimately getting only three minutes of sleep.

Upon thinking about thinking about Satine…thinking about thinking about…yeah, that's right. So when he thought about thinking about Satine, he thought about Satine and remembered she was taking driver's ed.

Since Michigan law didn't allow people with names of religions to take driver's ed, Christian and his friend Buddhist McBadbat hadn't taken it yet so he decided to jump at the opportunity.

Plus he kinda wanted to be with Satine more.

…Yeah.

Christian looked up at his father who had a spoon in his mouth while he was reading the obituaries.

"Dad?"

"DON'T YOU TAKE THAT TONE OF VOICE WITH ME, YOUNG MAN!!!" he screamed, slamming his fist down and causing the spoon to shoot across the table and stick into the wall. Billy Bob blinked a few times and cleared his throat. "What?"

"I, uh…do you think it's okay for me to start driver's ed now?"

"You're too young to drive."

"Dad, I'm almost eighteen."

"But in Michigan—"

"That was Michigan, Dad. This is Wisconsin, in case you, ya know, didn't…notice."

Billy Bob dropped the paper and looked around.

"My God…it IS! Holy shit! How'd that happen?!"

The doorbell, which from its horrible wiring system made it sound more like an old lady screaming over a cowbell, rang (or squawked, rather) and Billy Bob groaned.

"Stupid solicitors. We hate you all. Christian go give 'em the tea kettle," he said, shoving a purple tea kettle over to his son. (Purple tea kettle inside joke that only The Spastic Forkie and two other people will understand)

Reluctantly, Christian took the purple tea kettle and went to the door. Upon opening it, he stopped and stared at the couple standing there.

"We're heeeere!" announced Kip, throwing up his arms.

"Pistons suck!" seconded Jana doing the same.

"Bet you weren't expecting us, huh?" asked Kip, nudging Christian.

"No, not really."

"Hey, what happened to you?" Jana asked, observing Christian's distorted and sleep stricken face. "Looks like you had a run in with the rubber cement."

"I didn't sleep last night."

"Don't worry. After Superbowl XXXII, I couldn't sleep for two weeks. And I think I cried more that night that I'd urinated that entire week," Kip sighed as he stared forlornly into the distance for a bit. "But I'm fine now! So where's Billy Bob?"

"In there."

"Is that tea kettle for us?" asked Jana.

"Well…if you want it…"

"Why is it purple?" Kip asked.

"Cuz…it…well, I don't know. The author thought it would be amusing."

"Yeah, the author also thought it would be amusing if she made us your aunt and uncle by crossing over her Adventures of Jack the Ripper story with her Moulin Rouge High School AU parody. Isn't that great?"

"No because I have no idea what you just said."

Well, anyways, so Kip and Jana Timperline invited themselves in leaving Christian alone by the open door holding the purple tea kettle. Nobody except GollumRox and two other people knew why it was purple.

In the kitchen, Billy Bob greeted his brother who looked nothing like him and his sister-in-law who looked nothing like him.

"How are you liking Wisconsin so far?" Jana asked sitting next to Carolyn. She then paused and looked at her breakfast. "Is that Ramen? I LOVE Ramen!!!" She grabbed Carolyn's bowl and slurped down a bunch of noodles.

"It's okay. Kinda dirty. Kinda loud," Billy Bob responded.

"A lot better than Meesheegun, right?" Kip droned.

"Yah," Billy Bob said through his snort as he dug his face in his noodles.

Jana stopped snorting up the Ramen once she realized how unattractive it was after seeing Billy Bob do it.

"So why are you guys here?" Carolyn asked her aunt after she pulled her face out of the bowl.

"Well, we just thought we'd stop by and amuse the author for a bit. We ALSO came to tell you, in case you weren't already aware which you probably aren't, that the Piss-stains are in town for the first playoff game and we wanted to take you two," Jana explained.

Christian perked up at the offer. Perchance this was a good opportunity to hang out with Satine some more. Of course, basketball might not be her thing but it counted for something, right?

Carolyn just blinked and said, "Got nothing better to do tonight."

"Can I invite a friend?" Christian asked, slobbering from the mouth for reasons he couldn't quite fathom.

"Are you shitting me? Do you even KNOW how much these four tickets cost us?" Kip demanded, whipping them out.

"Did you have to pawn your wedding rings again?" Billy Bob droned behind the newspaper he was pretending to read.

"Actually we won THESE four in an online poker game," Kip admitted, pulling out four tickets with his other hand. "But I had to sell the Taurus to get these babies. And it better be well worth it."

"You mean the car you bought off Conan O'Brien?" Carolyn asked.

§§§ Moronic Flashback §§§

While at the American Whiffleball Making Convention of America (AWMCA) in New York City, Kip was stopped by a rather large, freckly and scary-looking man with a giant red pompadour.

"Excuse me, sir? How much would you give me for that car over there?" he asked pointing to a small green sports car that was currently collecting flies on the other side of the street.

"800," Kip flatly said and turned to leave.

"Like seriously?"

§§§ End of Moronic Flashback §§§

"Yeah, but it I really won't miss it that much. I don't think you'd miss something that you need to jump start every morning and reeks of corn beef and cabbage," Kip shrugged.

Christian shot him a quizzical look. "Corn beef and cabbage?"

§§§ Another Moronic Flashback §§§

On St. Patrick's Day of 1995, the same large, freckly but less scary-looking man with a giant red pompadour was found in the drivers seat of the Ford Taurus stuffing wads of fatty corn beef in his mouth and slurping up slimy cabbage rather prodigiously.

"Conan, have you seen the corn beef and cabbage?" came his mother's voice from one of the windows of the house.

"NO!" he yelled back, spraying bits of lard on the windshield. "GOD! LEAVE ME ALONE!"

§§§ End of Another Moronic Flashback §§§

"Well, Kip, you're a damn fool to be squandering money like that. I mean what if the Bucks end up losing? That'll just suck for you, won't it? And then you'll wish you never sold that piece of shit car," Billy Bob said.

"Traded," Jana corrected sternly. "And it's not about whether you win or lose, it's how much fun you have watching it."

"Not for the playoffs," Kip muttered to her.

Christian decided to ease the tension that had seemed to build up between his aunt and father (they were never too fond of each other to begin with and with her hormones being so out of whack as they were ((oh yeah, I forgot to mention, she's preggers (((pregnant))) but they don't want to know the gender because…just because)) the situation wasn't looking to improve much) by bringing back his original question.

"So is there ANY chance at all I could take a friend with me?" he asked desperately.

"You sound desperate," Kip observed. "Go ahead and invite him and we'll figure something out."

Christian's heart grinned.

"You're not taking my car," Billy Bob muttered, still pretending to read the newspaper. And it was completely obvious he was pretending due to the fact that the paper was upside down. "I was just checking my answers on the cross word puzzle…" Billy Bob eased as he casually turned the paper back around.

"No need," Kip said. "I got the car back this morning. How do you think we got here?"

Everyone turned to stare at him.

"You got it BACK?" Carolyn spat out in confusion. "How?"

§§§ Yet Another Moronic Flashback §§§

As Will Arnett drove up to Fox Studios in his newly bought Ford Taurus which strangely reeked of corn beef and cabbage, a security guard emerged from the booth and stopped him.

"I'm sorry, sir. Your ID's revoked," the guard told him.

"What?!" Will demanded.

But before he got a chance to figure it out, Jason Bateman, unable to contain his anger, leapt out from behind a cardboard bush he craftily placed as a good hiding place, pointed at his castmate and yelled, "I'm 'super psyched' about Justine playing my love interest?! I thought we were friends! We go ice skating together!"

"We saw the Conan show. You're done," the guard told Will. "You might as well give his car back to him."

"What are you talking about? This isn't his car! I got this off some guy in Wisconsin!" he objected right before Jason lunged at his throat and proceeded to beat the living crap out of him.

§§§ End of Yet Another Moronic Flashback §§§

"I'm not sure exactly how," Kip said quietly after a beat to ponder it. "But there's some blood and froth stains on the seats so maybe the owner was killed by a rabid dog while parked in a bad neighborhood. Anyways, it's not important. We'll swing by to pick you kids up at six."

In a blur of confusion, Christian and his sister excused themselves from the table and headed to the bus stop.

Meanwhile every single reader hissed and groaned at this terrible random story and wished they never had gotten hooked on it.

* * *

Fufulupin: I have just decided that I love you.

BabyGurl92: Hey, weren't you the same girl who flamed my Notebook parody and called me a "skanky lil bitch"? I believe so! And now here you are praising my Moulin Rouge high school AU parody! Gee willikers! See how it alllll cooooomes arooooound? "Neer-neer…neeeeer-neer!" Improv skills. Cuckoo. Alalalala. …Wow, I'm done.

Oh and if any of you need me to explain those references, I'll be more than happy to. Or maybe I'll just be happy. I wouldn't go so far as to saying more than happy because being happy is enough, right? Blah. Review, you lot!


End file.
